McConnell on Ukraine proxy war: "We haven’t lost a single American in this war. Most of the money that we spend, is spent on replenishing weapons, so it’s actually employing people here."[paraphrased]

Angry libs on lemmy downplay CNN poll showing majority of Americans oppose more US aid for Ukraine

Heckin wholesome democracy, ignoring the will of the people to keep doing what you wanted anyway, after doing that for decades in Afghanistan and Iraq
Imagine not helping your Allies when they’ve been invaded, unprovoked, and are fighting for everything.
- To be fair, we tend to take US military help to Europe for granted in retrospect. Both FDR and Churchill fought hard battles at home to ensure the opposition to Nazi Germany, and at the time it is far from obvious that they would succeed. There's also an element of luck to the fact that we had FDR and Churchill at the helm of these countries in these years - weaker leaders would have crumbled like France.
  US military involvement in the postwar era has been a fucking mess, but we (Europeans) are eternally grateful for this - far from obvious - determination to help your allies when they're being invaded.
  Post script since there's a bunch of Russian shills in this thread: We're grateful for the efforts of the Red Army as well. The fact that Stalin was happy to cooperate with Hitler all the way until the invasion of the Soviet Union, combined with a common distaste for Soviet postwar policies in many liberated areas, however makes our appreciation of the Soviet political leadership at the time a bit more strained. Soviet military tactics were also inefficient and caused unnecessary suffering and losses within the Red Army - history does repeat itself.
- Avengers theme plays
The White House must be angry libs on lemmy then.
- They're angry libs, yes.
Good thing we listened to a few things Alexis Tocqueville had to say and we don't simply follow majority opinion on everything, because sometimes the majority is wrong.

At a 2008 summit, NATO stated that it would attempt to expand to include Georgia and Ukraine, despite Russia having stated that NATO membership for those countries was a red line for them. Georgia was immediately invaded by Russia in response. Imo this makes it clear that NATO membership for either of those countries was so unacceptable that Russia would rather invade.

If we assume that Russia (and Putin in particular) is acting violently and irrationally like a wild animal, why did NATO continue to agitate Russia when the only possible outcome would be violence? Surely a neutral or even Russia-aligned Ukraine would be preferable to a war-torn Ukraine? This is proof that the US and NATO don't care about the average person actually living in Ukraine, and indeed don't care about the Ukrainian state beyond it being a useful (and profitable) proxy against a geo-political rival.

To be clear, I'm not excusing Russia here, but geo-politics aren't about what's "fair" or "right", and if they were, the US would be a global pariah.

edit: sorry this is really long.
I think it's clear that NATO support for Ukraine is not altruistic (it is simply not how international politics functions) but the Ukrainian people as such certainly do, in my eyes, have an ethical right to self-defence. If I were Ukrainian, I would want NATO weapons because they give me a better chance of fighting off the invader. After all, it's not like the 2022 invasion was the first bit of tension between Ukraine and Russia post-independence, it makes sense to try and form a counterbalancing alliance with the 'far' imperial power to counter the 'close' one, it's a common thing to do. e.g., Mali allying with Russia to counter French influence, Armenia allying with Russia to counter Turkish-Azeri aggression, and so on and so forth.
I think what I find disagreeble about peoples' attitudes on here is their attitude towards the Ukrainian people's struggle. Yes, ok, I also hate the far-right elements in the Ukrainian military and don't care at all that they got smashed in Mariupol, but I certainly do care about the RIGHT TO SELF-DETERMINATION which is being denied to so many Ukrainians (there is clear evidence that outside of Crimea even Russian-speaking Ukrainians almost entirely oppose the invasion). Likewise
Yes, NATO does not care about Ukrainians, but an invasion was not the 'logical' response from Russia, and as per existing evidence was based on a complete misunderstanding of the realities on the ground in Ukraine from the Russian leadership which has become increasingly isolated and personalist (around Putin) in the past two decades but especially since COVID. There were a vast number of less escalatory and mutually destructive potential paths for the Russian leadership to have taken. After all, this war has gone terribly for Russia compared to their initial aims. Putin claimed (wrongly) that Ukrainian national identity was a Bolshevik creation with no real support, yet now a fervent Ukrainian national identity exists now more than ever before in both the east and west of the country. Putin thought Russian-speaking Ukrainians would rally to his side, yet he has pushed them into the arms of the Ukrainian state more than ever before. Putin was afraid of Ukraine becoming aligned with NATO, yet now he has pushed them into the arms of the west completely and permanently. The invasion has killed tens of thousands of young Russian men, has caused considerable capital flight, large-scale brain drain, and empowered Prigozhin and other mercenary/sub-state militias (including Kadyrovites and such) to the point where a mercenary group was within a few hours of marching on Moscow(!) before deciding it wasn't worth the effort (Prigozhin is still strong enough to be allowed to potter about diplomatic meetings, if you need any indication of the dire state of the Russian state). Putin claims to be conducting de-Nazification yet his policies since 2014 have uniformly strengthened the position of the far-right within Ukrainian state + society.
Plus the conduct of the Russian Army and its affiliated elements has been extremely inhumane. I would not say there is evidence of genocide, no (though the large-scale kidnapping of Ukrainian children and their Russification, if true on a systemic scale, would be an act of genocide-I do not think there is enough evidence to say either way yet), but there is evidence of systematic and systemic abuses on a VASTLY larger scale than we have seen from the Ukrainians. It is a catastrophe of Russia's own making.
To get back on topic (sorry), I do not see how you can admonish Ukrainians for supporting any means for their national self-defence. They have every right to resist the invasion and to not want part of their homeland (territory and 'land' is important in all national identities/mythologies), no? There is no contradiction between supporting this right to self-defence and self-determination and hating the Nazi groups which, unfortunately, have an outsized power within the Ukrainian military (but do not completely control the state-Zelensky is Jewish and a Russian-speaker!). Yes, Ukrainian national mythology has its share of far-right and general awful elements to it, but unfortunately that's common in a lot of Eastern Europe and as per studies Nazism and antisemitism do not have more support in Ukraine than in Russia or the rest of Eastern Europe. There has been plenty of polling/surveying on these topics in Ukraine. There is more so just a lack of understanding as to what the Banderites actually did in WW2, not real support for their actions/Nazi collaboration. That's bad but not what some are saying on here.
- To clarify my stance, I want the war to end as soon as possible so that all the people on the ground can stop killing each other for no reason. I also agree that Russia invading was, in addition to being wrong because war is bad, incredibly stupid and needlessly damaging to their own position (I was one of the people saying they wouldn't launch an invasion because it seemed like it would backfire). We'll see how the economic and geo-political damage ends up shaking out in a decade or so, I imagine. And of course it's understandable for Ukrainians to take up arms to defend their land, though it will likely only prolong the suffering, especially if we agree that life on the ground under the Ukrainian state would be little better than living under the Russian one. I also recognize that Putin claiming the war was necessary for de-nazification etc was the equivalent of pretending to care about human rights to sell the war to the populace; yes there are nazis and the far right is a huge problem in Ukraine, but that isn't something Russia actually cares about (beyond a potential insurgency, anyway).
  However, the point of my comment was not to condemn Ukraine. Instead, it was to point out that the US is not interested in helping Ukrainians (something we clearly agree on), and that in fact they are more than willing to sacrifice them in a conflict to achieve their own ends, namely isolating/weakening Russia and opening up Ukraine to even more voracious imperial extraction.
- I certainly do care about the RIGHT TO SELF-DETERMINATION which is being denied to so many Ukrainians
  Do you support the right to self-determination for Ukrainians in the Donbas region? Do you support their right to live in peace, free from artillery bombardment and being terrorized by far-right paramilitary groups? Or do you only support the rights of Ukrainians that the state department tells you to care about?
  
  I don't think that is in any contradiction w/ my comment whatsoever.
  I think a peace deal involving referendums in these areas (not under military occupation-creates unfair and unfree conditions for a referendum e.g., as in Crimea!) would identify the actual will of the people in these parts of the Donbas. I expect heavily that Crimea above all would vote to leave Ukraine and I think it has every right to do so ethically-speaking, though I do not think the referendum was carried out in free/fair conditions.
  
  I think a peace deal involving referendums in these areas (not under military occupation-creates unfair and unfree conditions for a referendum e.g., as in Crimea!) would identify the actual will of the people in these parts of the Donbas.
  Ukraine had even better terms than that under the Minsk agreements. They refused to hold to the terms and stop shelling Donbas, even after they signed a ceasefire twice. After the invasion there was another attempt at peace talks, it ended with Ukraine dragging their own negotiator into the street and shooting him in the head. Late last year Zelensky signed a decree making it illegal to negotiate peace with Putin. The few times Ukraine has retaken a major area they immediately begin purging "collaborators and traitors". If Russia pulled back it's military Ukraine would just immediately invade those areas, regardless of any agreements they signed.
  I'm not philosophically opposed to your idea, it really would be the best outcome. It's just impossible to actually implement.
  
  I think that is just a fundamentally one-sided understanding of why the Minsk Agreement failed to be honest. It was a poorly-written, unimplementable deal that neither side took seriously. It's not like the D/LPRs and Russia were saints here. Indeed, there also isn't much reason to believe the D/LPRs were, beyond the first year or so, really representative of the people in the region's desires, since the original independent-minded leaders were replaced by those much closer to Russia. FURTHERMORE, the Minsk agreement was simply too unpopular in Ukraine for any government to survive implementing it. Ukrainians largely viewed the D/LPRs as Russian proxies (to what extent they are is arguable, but they certainly were less so as time went on and never were even to start with) and, in large, abhorred this sort of Russian influence.
  It wasn't just because Ukrainian state was war-mongering and poor baby Russia was forced to step in. This is not to say at all that the Ukrainian Government made no mis-steps in the build-up to the war-yes, they definitely did, and the Ukrainians simply didn't believe Putin would be rash or stupid enough to launch such an invasion until very close to the time so never really backed down from a maximalist NATO position and didn't prepare properly for early-war defences. But it's not like you are saying. Both sides caused the failure of Minsk, and neither side was ready to adhere to it.
  
  It was a poorly-written, unimplementable deal that neither side took seriously.
  Then why did Ukraine sign the two separate Minsk agreements if they never intended to follow them?
  FURTHERMORE, the Minsk agreement was simply too unpopular in Ukraine for any government to survive implementing it.
  Peace with Donbas was popular with Ukrainians. In the most recent elections the candidate that ran on a platform of peace with Donbas won the election and became president. Zelensky then went to the front and gave his "I'm not some loser" speech to Ukraine's militants on the front to try to deescalate the war. Once he failed to reign in his paramilitaries he began agitating for more war.
  You are correct that it's unlikely that a Ukrainian government could survive implementing peace with Donbas. This isn't because it was unpopular with the people of Ukraine but because it was unpopular with the people in power. After the US-backed coup far-right elements were placed in positions of power in the Ukrainian government, especially in the police and military. If that failed, the US could have once again opened the floodgates of money from NGOs to anti-government protestors and replaced whoever the Ukrainian people elected with a more "pro-democratic" leader.
  You're right that overall the central Ukrainian government wanted war too much to abide by the ceasefire treaties they signed. I just don't think that excuses them. Wanting war too much to do peace is literally what I'm criticizing Ukraine for.
You can't write two paragraphs excusing Russia and then say "I'm not excusing Russia btw."
No country should be able to force 'my way or a military invasion' ultimatum on another non hostile sovereign state. If a government interprets a neighboring country joining a purely defensive treaty out of their own volition (no, Ukraine is not secretly run by the CIA after Maidan) as a hostile act, that only means the nationalism levels went out if control.
I'm normally very critical of the US, but neither them nor NATO can be blamed for this conflict.
- For the first 40 years of NATO's existence it sought to offensively undermine democracy and reinforce the states of NATO aligned countries in Europe through terrorism.
  They then rather offensively carpet bombed Yugoslavia killing and wounding thousands of civilians ( many of whom were from Kosovo the people they purportedly wanted to help), 3 foreign diplomats by bombing a foreign embassy not in anyway involved in a conflict and completely destroying the infrastructure of Serbia.
  They then offensively invaded Afghanistan where they destabilized the country, toppled the government and then put pedophile psychos in charge because they were the ones willing to work with us, killed nearly 100,000 civilians, and then ended up putting the original government back in charge 20 years later.
  Finally they offensively took the most prosperous country in Africa, a country with universal college, healthcare, jobs programs, and housing, a desert country that had a 200 year supply of water and bombed the fuck out of it, destroying the water supply, plundering the gold, supporting the precursors to ISIS, and turned the country into a place with fucking slave auctions.
  But yeah NATO is a defensive alliance.
  
  Ok, I will not be defending those actions of NATO - I protested against my country involvement when possible and do agree about them being either dumb decisions (Kosovo) or straight up war crimes (Afghanistan). They shouldn't have happend.
  My point still stand though. NATO doesn't threaten Russia borders. It could be called 'Anti-Russia-Country-Club', but even then the only things threatened by existence of NATO are post-USSR legacy and economic interest. Not exactly arguments to mount a large scale invasion/ethnic cleansing.
  
  Ok, I will not be defending those actions of NATO
  You'll just ignore their relevance to why NATO approaching your doorstep is, in fact, hostile and aggressive.
  NATO was literally created to oppose the USSR and the left in Europe generally, and did not disband after the fall of the USSR, instead taking up further aggression and at greater range, and keeping a very clear encirclement position around Russia. The bases got larger, the spending increased, and membership was sought to undermine any countries stepping out of line of the American-imposed order.
  
  If NATO, as we both agree, is an aggressive group of countries that has a contemporary history of attacking countries that are not aligned with the West, despite many of these countries trying to align themselves with the West in good faith (Libya, Russia, and Iran all helped the West in the war on terror), then what is the appropriate way for Russia to react to the expansion of NATO to their doorstep? And I'm asking this as a genuine question, you're Russia how are you reacting to the West surrounding you despite assisting them, when do you stop tolerating increased military encroachment?
  I don't think that Russia invaded Ukraine because of only NATO expansion, but it obviously played a role given that the peace agreement that was nearly agreed upon April 2022 had Ukraine agree to neutrality. I think a lot of it came down to the genocide of ethnically Russian Ukrainians in the East and Ukraine's increased shelling of the region in February 2022 is probably what escalated the war into what we see today.
  
  That's a good question. Let me tackle it from a different angle though - why do ex USSR/Warsaw Pact countries actively want to join NATO?
  As a resident of one, I think it's because they feel that Russia after Yeltsin has the exact same imperialistic principles USSR did. And it doesn't matter to them that Russia did cooperate with the West, because they see those principles as enough threat. Thus, they have the same reason to fear Russia as Russia has to fear NATO.
  Perhaps if NATO disbanded before 1999 we wouldn't have current Russia, but that's alt history.
  
  why do ex USSR/Warsaw Pact countries actively want to join NATO?
  Because they are run by right-wing oligarchies that want to consolidate and protect their accumulated wealth and power? The imperialism is coming from inside the house.
  
  Disappointing. The other Hexbear folk at least tried to have a discussion, you just show up with the old 'everything left of my position is fascist' argument, expecting what exactly?
  
  Bro one of the Baltics is sueing holocaust survivors for trying to reclaim their property. Orban just straight is fascist. Poland has a reactionary right wing theocratic government that rather famously banned abortion. What do you want from us? If it looks like a goose and goosesteps like a goose. The reactionary right wing takeover of eastern europe is well documented. The spread of the double-holocaust narrative and it's acceptance by the us and eu is well documented. The antisemitism, anti-lgbt violence, anti-romani violence, is all well documents. What do you want from us?
  
  No, a good understanding of fascism and imperialism includes understanding that countries at the periphery either find a way to do the imperialism to their east/south (geographically right now) or to their ethnic others within or be the ones consumed by it.
  Poland got to join the imperialists, though with significant disadvantage of being at the behest of exploitation, in exchange for becoming the people who perform (at least partially) the expropriation towards he east at Russia/Belorussia/Ukraine. The ruling class of capitalists always takes this bargain as long as they continue to benefit
  
  Russia after Yeltsin
  Russia during Yeltsin rolled in the tanks on its own parliament. The absence of foreign invasions was not for lack of malice, but for lack of capability.
  The reason why ex-Warsaw Pact countries are flocking to NATO is because when the communists left power, the reactionaries resurged. And naturally the reactionaries in power wanted to be part of a right-wing alliance. But no matter what revanchists might tell you, living standards across Eastern Europe were better in the 1980s than they were in the 2000s.
  
  Yeah, Russia had nukes. That's the only thing that will stop NATO.
  
  I live in eastern Europe, and I agree that the 90s and early 2000 sucked for us. Big time. My country government absolutely botched the transition to free market economy.
  Still, I feel we traded stable but shit for volatile yet hopeful.
  
  there's no way to sell public infrastructure to the highest bidder that won't result in a massive drop in quality of life. it's got very little to do with your government and entirely to do with the introduction of bourgeois rule.
  
  I'd agree in a vacuum. Even though I'd prefer state owned stuff, quality of life does not depend solely on who owns the infrastructure.
  Stuff we take for granted like buying food product at the deli (meat, cheese) required either being lucky, knowing the right people or having US dollars in your pocket.
  
  The only way the transition was "botched" was that the west wasn't able to loot as much as they wanted.
  
  Because the US starts color revolutions in those countries until a pro-western government is in power.
  
  That's a good question. Let me tackle it from a different angle though - why do ex USSR/Warsaw Pact countries actively want to join NATO?
  Fellow ex Warsaw Pact resident here.
  They wanted to join NATO because after the dissolution of the USSR these countries were pushed into a deep economic crisis, to which one of the solutions, apart from relentless austerity programs was the privatization of the shit ton of public assets they had. Of course lots of western companies were in on this since for them these assets were really cheap and they had a lot of money. The city hall of the town i went to university to became a fucking McDonald's.
  Thing is, a lot of people didnt like this, not just the austerity, but the handing of domestic assets to western companies. And they were not even that wrong about it! In Albania, in 1997 a series of bankruptcies of asset managing companies (most western owned) who were basically scamming people who barely came into contact with capitalism, telling them theyll get 50% interest rates for their money, led to a brutal uprising where ordinary people were sacking military bases, setting up machine gun nests in the borders of cities and overthrew the government (after half a year of protests).
  In the meantime Russia was led by well-known alcoholic, Boris Yeltsin, who doesn't strike me as the napoleonic conqueror people make him out to be.
  So why did these countries join NATO? Because they DESPERATELY needed the money, but western companies wouldnt invest in (exploit) them if they dont have insurances (troops that could be sent against the people anytime an Albanian-type revolt breaks out or an anti-western government come in power who would try to renationalize assets) that their investments (exploitation) runs as smoothly as possible. And it works. People like to say that "ackshually the living standards went up in Eastern Europe", but they never stop to check that it only went up because the rich got richer, pulling the average up. The working class' lives stagnated at best, except the social net around them is rapidly brought down. Older people are not nostalgic for socialism here because theyre becoming senile, but because they see every time that they go to a hospital that the increasingly privatized healthcare system is crumbling.
  Don't believe me? It's fine. But i would suggest that you examine who the current pariahs are in NATO: Hungary, whose government has to rely in a lot of things to the cheapest due to a ravaged economy (both by corruption and privatization), so they rely a lot on domestic production and trying to hand off as little stuff to western corporations as possible (and still fail at it, hence why they are still intact), and Turkey, who makes no secret of wanting to standing on its own feet and not rely on western corporations.
  
  In the meantime Russia was led by well-known alcoholic, Boris Yeltsin, who doesn't strike me as the napoleonic conqueror people make him out to be.
  probably worth mentioning that I think he also couped the government to prevent the Communist party from being voted back in to power in I want to say '94.
  
  NATO weapons are bombing Russia literally right now.
  Are the Russians sincerely supposed to believe that NATO isn’t a threat
  That’s sort of a hard reality to contextualize away
- non hostile sovereign state
  : |
- non hostile sovereign state
  For the past several decades NATO has utterly destroyed various countries around the world, while maintaining ruthless tradewars against the peoples of Cuba, Iran and Venezuela, as well as a brutal colonial regime across much of West Africa. NATO won't stop at invading your country either. They'll maintain occupations in Syria and blockades of Afghanistan from now until the end of time.
  NATO would rather see the people of Niger and Mali starve to death rather than pay market rates for their resources.
  NATO will crow that countries in South America are too defiant, why, they didn't even try and coup the brazilian elections last year!
  NATO is, simply put, a defensive alliance of the world's preeminent warmongerers.
  Hosting NATO troops is the epitome of hostility.
  Unfortunately for you some countries can actually resist. And resist they shall.
  
  Oh I'd forgotten that Biden seized Afghanistan's soveriegn wealth, causing a famine.
  
  That famine was an investment in democracy.
- non hostile sovereign state
  Non-hostility is when you do ethnic cleansing against the ethnicity the neighboring country is named after, engage in a war right by the borders to support that ethnic ckeansing, violate your treaties to end that war, and cozy up your coup government to the military organization intended to encircle that country, an org that regularly engages in aggression.
  
  Ethnic cleansings in those territories are a fabricated casus beli for Russia 'green man'. There were tensions between Russian and Ukrainian nationals in those territories, but I've seen no data on large scale extermination operations.
  Ukraine engaged in a defensive war with a force clearly backed by their stronger neighbor that just laid claim to another piece of their land (Crimea). This was a land grab in all but name, no matter how much propaganda tries to paint it as a legitimate independence movement. Blame for casualties of that war lies entirely on separatists and Russia.
  
  Ethnic cleansings in those territories are a fabricated casus beli for Russia 'green man'
  The ethnic cleansing was and is part of official Ukrainian policy. Do you think the sneaky Rooskies infiltrated and forced Kyiv to drop Russian as an official language, one that could be learned and used in schools in Donbas? Did they cleverly rename the streets to Bandyerite fascist names? Did they create the Azov Batallikn, Righy Sector, etc - the Ukrainian fascist groups weaponized against the ethnic Russian civilians of Donbas and now directly incorporated into the government and armed forces? Did Russia secretly create the entire Kyiv side of the civil war that heavily targeted civilians and civilian infrastructure on the Donbas side?
  Cool to learn, I didn't know that.
  
  Ukraine has used internationally banned cluster munitions in the donbass since 2014. A six year old playing in a field and dying to unexploded ordnance, whether that child is a Russian or Ukrainian speaker, is a horrific tragedy. These bombs are a form of terrorism sponsored by the post-coup Ukrainian state, and the nazi paramilitaries active in the area were and are state-sponsored terrorists.
  https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/10/20/ukraine-widespread-use-cluster-munitions
  
  But I never said I support cluster munitions. Fuck them, and fuck the Nazis.
  I did not just engage in a few hours of discussion to try and convince anyone that Ukraine is the shining beacon of hope and democracy. It isn't, they have problems. So does every state. Some (like Russia) just seem to have comparatively more of those, or are not particularly good at dealing with them.
  
  The problem though is that these issues are self-perpetuating. Both the current Russian and post-2014 Ukraine governments are the products of US interference. If we were truly spreading Democracy, then they would be capable of mediating these conflicts peacefully. Since Capital dictates the terms of our international intervention, it puts its own interests first, and it's very interested in selling weapons. I just can't accept the premise that selling more weapons will lead to any sort of long-lasting peace or democracy in the region.
  
  Ethnic cleansings in those territories are a fabricated casus beli for Russia 'green man'.
  there have been reports of Ukranian paramilitaries shelling the Donbas going back almost a decade. multiple peace treaties were signed over it, all aiming to stop the ethnic cleansing. each and every one of those treaties were violated. this is all extremely well-documented. can you even prove that a single of these reports is fabricated?
  
  I meant pre 2014 conflict though.
  
  the person you replied to was talking about the last 9 years
  
  large scale extermination operations.
  How many people do you have to exterminate before it becomes bad?
- They can, because hexbear. They’re Russian apologists.
  
  Yeah yeah, I know Hexbear. I don't agree with their pro-imperialism, but at the same time they are not wrong with their socialist takes.
  That's why it's worth debating them - they are not inherently evil like fascists are.
  
  In fascists' defence, they have no theory to fall back on, it's all just kneejerk reptilian brain brute force and brute words and brute cult of personality. That's why I am befuddled whenever I see a leftist take an offensive realist perspective :/
Ok, according to what you're saying, Mexico can never join BRICS if the US says no. Is that what you think? The US can be a pretty rabid animal too, as you say.
- What do you think would happen if, hypothetically speaking, a nearby state such as, let’s say, Cuba started hosting the military assets of a hostile power?
  What about even a distant nation such as oh I don’t know maybe Iran or one of the koreas started making weapons the US felt threatened by?
  Just thinking aloud here I don’t know.
  
  Nobody is offering Ukraine nukes, that's what the Budapest memorandum was all about, knock it off.
  Cuba had its revolution and had its own arsenal provided by the USSR and has survived everything the US threw at it so far and Ukraine will survive russia too, but a moat would be handy :)
  
  and has survived everything the US threw at it so far
  The point being the US threw a lot of shit at it because of course the US wouldn’t tolerate those missiles being there, and Russia won’t tolerate NATO being in Ukraine.
  If China made a defensive alliance with Mexico that included a military base in Tijuana, Mexico would suddenly be in need of some democracy and freedom.
  Continuing to deny this basic reality means your position isn’t connected to reality.
  Peace requires a sustainable security situation for Russia not just for Ukraine and for Russia that means no NATO since NATO is hostile to Russia. It’s clear and denying this is just putting your head in the sand.
  
  Yes, but the point is with Cuba, missiles were removed, peace deal was reached.
  Does the US have to place nukes in Ukraine so that by removing them russia will stop attacking it?
  But by all means, if Trump starts threatening Mexico with some bullshit invasion to clean out the cartels, they should by all means ask China and anyone else to help out, sure! That's how it works in a bipolar world (there is no multipolar world, russia's empire is gone and China+US will make sure it never returns)
  NATO is not hostile to russia, NATO prevents russia from invading its western neighbours, which is obviously a bummer to russia.
  The sustainable security solution is: russia respects borders and other countries' sovereignty. The end.
  
  Yes, but the point is with Cuba, missiles were removed, peace deal was reached.
  Yeah so the obvious conclusion is that peace in Cuba required satisfying the US’s demand to not have a Soviet military presence there.
  Likewise peace in Ukraine requires not having a NATO military presence there.
  Pretending that NATO isn’t hostile to Russia is also simply disconnected from reality. You need to connect your world view to reality.
  
  Also we have been punishing Cuba with an embargo which has crippled their economy ever since just because we can.
  
  Well, the weapons are still in Cuba, thank god :) and Cuba has an air force, which I suppose was given/sold to Cuba by the USSR/China, so maybe the US can also give some F16 to Ukraine. The USSR also sent planes and soviet crews to fight the Americans in Vietnam, so there is precedent for all that.
  NATO is hostile to russia's imperial ambitions and so are all of its neighbours.
  
  What are you talking about? The Cuban missile crisis was resolved by the missiles being removed and the soviet military presence ended in Cuba.
  You’re factually wrong when you seem to say the soviet missiles are still there. They were removed.
  The US’s security interests demanded they were removed from the nearby Cuba, and US missiles that threatened the USSR were removed from Turkey.
  Peace was achieved by withdrawing the military threat from each others borders.
  Likewise peace in Ukraine can only be achieved if Russia doesn’t feel threatened by a NATO presence there.
  It’s easy to understand.
  
  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=m7MZs-QdrFI
  
  Well, the weapons are still in Cuba
  Cuba still has weapons at all, but the crisis was over the nuclear missiles, which were removed. It's a very direct comparison here.
  
  Yes, but the point is with Cuba, missiles were removed, peace deal was reached.
  You get that in this analogy Ukraine is taking the place of Cuba, right? Like NATO is using Ukraine as a disposable proxy to bleed Russia... okay well the metaphor falls apart because the details are really different, but Cuba was threatening the US in a vaguely similar way to how Ukraine is threatening Russia, and the peace deal was that Cuba would remove all the missiles and in exchange the US would remove it's missiles from Turkey and not massacre the Cuban population. So the equivalent would be Ukraine agreeing not to join NATO (not that NATO was ever going to let them), disarm, and stop trying to wipe out Russian speaking Ukrainians.
  NATO is not hostile to russia
  NATO's explicit purpose is and always have been the destruction of the Russian state and the pillaging of it's resources and it's beyond bad faith to state otherwise.
  
  NATO is not hostile to russia
  
  Ukraine’s coup government was threatening to construct nukes shortly before the US proxy war there began. I would cite my sources but I know you won’t care 😉
- Well, BRICS isn't really a formal alliance but if it were? Yeah, joining a hostile alliance while sharing a border with the US is asking for trouble, and the US has committed all matter of atrocities in latin america. I do think an outright invasion would be less likely than their usual method of military coups and death squads.
  
  So just to reiterate, you are okay with America invading Mexico to enforce its will on them?
  
  Half of Mexico is still under US military occupation, they already have a buffer zone between them.
  
  Mate, it’s not hard.
  It’s a yes or no question.
  
  Your question wasn't for me. And no, USA should give back all the land they stole from Mexico. And until they do that, it's ridiculous for them to expect Russia to return land that's populated with Russian ethnics to a fascists state that tried to exterminate them before the war.
  
  When did the last military coup in Latin America, orchestrated by CIA ,happen? I am not saying that the US is great but at some point, we need to talk about the present. And at the present(and recent past), the US is not trying to overthrow a government, at least not by using military force in Latin America.
  As far as the war in Ukraine in concerned, the US is doing the right thing, even if they are doing it because it benefits them. This is the only time since WW2 that the US is doing the right thing. Have you ever wondered why historically neutral countries like Sweden want to join NATO now? What caused that change?
  Mexico has every right to join the Warsaw Pact and i would be on Mexico's and Russia's side if the US invaded Mexico for wanting to join an alliance.
  Now let's talk about how NATO is threatening Russia. How would that happen? If Ukraine joined NATO, do you think NATO would invade Russia? You do realize that Russia has nukes, right? NATO is not about invading Russia, it's about preventing Russia, a big country with nukes, from invading smaller countries with no nukes.
  
  In 2014, Brazil, the coup on Dilma Roussef from the Worker's Party received backing from the USA. In 2018, the unlawful conviction of Lula from the same party, was not only backed but also had strategical support from the USA through instructions on how then judge Sergio Moro should conduct the trial and how he should work with and favour the prosecution, even by the use of fake witnesses and evidence.
  They also had the heaviest of hands against Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela a few years later.
  So the USA never stopped meddling and forcing their way on South America, really.
  
  Did the US deploy military troops in Brazil?
  
  It's not necessary to have a military base or troops in order to threaten the sovereignty of a country. This is not only a bad faith argument, but it's incredibly braindead as well.
  And if you're insistent on semantics, yes, the USA deployed troops for a "joint training" with Brazilian troops during (far-right USA backed) Bolsonaro's government.
  
  It's not semantics. True, you can overthrow a government without a military invasion but doing a military invasion is much more serious and more "bad". My point is that the US hasnt recently done the "more bad" thing(except for Libya but not even Russia gave a fuck about that), while Russia is actively doing the "more bad" thing.
  The expanding of NATO depends on democratically elected governments of sovereign countries choosing to join an alliance. NATO didnt roll tanks over those countries forcing them to join NATO. If NATO did that, i would agree that it would be a very bad thing.
  There are a lot of degrees of interactions between countries. Soft power, hard power, hybrid warfare, etc. Not all of them are equal or destructive. Just because Russia is currently doing the worst kind of interaction(invasion), you cant equate all negative interactions between countries to rationalize "but all countries are doing bad stuff".
  Russia had very little soft power and with this invasion, they wasted large chunks of it. They proved to everyone that ultimately, they are willing to use military force to achieve their objectives. The fact that the US did/does it, doesnt justify it. Both sides can be bad and in this specific situation, one side is clearly in the wrong while the other side is supporting the "good" side(for their own reasons).
  Do you not think that we should respect country borders and their governments, especially when they are democratically elected? The whole "it was a coup, thats how Zelensky got elected" is bullshit that was started by Russia AFTER the invasion.
  I went back and checked the russian statements after the latest ukranian elections, where the actual antirussian candidate(Poroshenko) had lost. The Kremlin was tendative but hopeful since their main "bad guy" had lost. Kremlin didnt say anything about staged elections, didnt say anything about CIA conspiracy to elect Zelensky or anything like that. Kremlin was "well, at least that asshole(Poroshenko) lost, maybe we can find some common ground with Zelensky".
  But Russia lacked the soft power to do that. So they overplayed their hand and used hard power to achieve it.
  the USA deployed troops for a “joint training” with Brazilian troops during (far-right USA backed) Bolsonaro’s government.
  I mean the US is training people from other countries and when it comes to Latin America, those people are usually far right. Is this a good thing? No. But this isnt as bad as invading a country. Again, it is a spectrum. There is a difference between Russia training for example people from Donbas(bad), or giving them Buk missiles(more bad) or straight up invading(most bad) or straight up going after Ukraine's capital instead of just liberating/securing the separatist regions(you have gone full disney bad guy).
  This is what i am talking about Russia overplaying their hand. You cant really talk about "protecting the people of Donbas", when you are literally speed marching(literally airlifting and dropping) to Kiev. You dont give a fuck about Donbas, you just want a regime change(through violence, against the democratic results) in Ukraine.
  
  The last coup was Bolivia in 2019, unless we're doing the old it's not true because it hasn't been declassified yet shtick
  
  Did the US deploy military troops in Bolivia? You do understand the difference between saying "yeah, we support you" and then local forces do a coup and literally invading and using your own troops to violently overthrowing a government. Dont you think there is a huge difference there?
  
  You know exactly what someone means when they say the US did a coup, stop playing dumb.
- NATO and BRICS are fundamentally different. You cannot compare them in good faith. NATO exists for the explicit purpose of destroying Russia. BRICS does not exist for the explicit purpose of destroying NATO, or America for that matter. It's an extremely bad faith comparison.
  Also yeah America would flatten the Mexico City if Mexico tried to join BRICS. They've already agitated for a coup a number of times in the last decade.
- ?
  What component of BRICS is a military alliance? That's a nonsensical comparison.
  And the Mexican president just said that Mexico is unable to join BRICS because of the geopolitical situation.
- NATO and BRICS are just not comparable? Like... they're both acronyms I guess.
- If Mexico was given an army by China and started bombing Texas and committing ethnic cleansing, it would not be imperialism to try and stop that
  If the lines on a map are an issue for you, just imagine a world where the Us broke up and lost Texas to Mexico before the ethnic cleansing started
"How dare ex soviet nations try to ensure their own protection after Russia showed multiple times they like to invade ex soviet nations!"
Russia having stated that NATO membership for those countries was a red line for them
Fuck that bully shit. They don't own Ukraine and Georgia and they can make their own decisions. If Russia wanted a nato buffer zone they should have offered incentive. Look what they got instead...
I remember another time when some dictator wanted a bigger sphere of influence and started occupying other countries. Appeasement didn't work than and it didn't work with Russia.
I find in all Russia's statements kind of ridiculous that it would have a say in how other sovereign countries handle their safety. Ukraine and Georgia have their own decisions to make
- You know sovereignty isn't real, right? Like it's just not? Countries invade whoever they want whenever they think they can get away with it? Most of Europe just went in to Iraq illegally and murdered a million people? Ukraine sent a lot of troops on that adventure. The US just kills people and topples governments all over? France controls colonial possessions in Africa? Canada de-facto runs a bunch of African territory through it's ruthless resource extraction firms? South Korea and Okinawa are under US military occupation? North Korea only remains Sovereign because they can make Seoul glow in the dark if the US tries something? The west uses ruthless monetary manipulation, dumping of consumer goods and food, outright piracy and theft, to control other countries?
  This isn't model UN.
  
  And it's time to stop the invading shit
  
  Okay, and? Like... that's... a nice sentiment, but that's all it is.
  
  Yeah and? That's what we can do on this platform. Comment on things
  
  Putin isn't going to end the invasion because some people from some obscure Reddit clone said so.
  
  Exactly
  
  So then we agree, America must be defanged at all costs
  
  Somewhat true (all costs is a troublesome term), but also disregards the rest of the issue
  
  It really doesn't. American aggression is found around every corner if you look at thr history and impetus behind this conflict.
  
  American aggression is found around every corner if you look at thr history
  True
  impetus behind this conflict.
  Ehhh
  Kinda like this excuse back in the day
  
  You're not making any sense. Unless you think that NATO encirclement, the Maidan coup, etc, are all Russian false flags?
  
  Nope.
  Instead Russia basically forced multiple countries to join a war crime organization so they have even some safety
- It's not pretty but this is how the world works. If a man is holding a gun to your head, and says he'll kill you if you don't give him your wallet, do you hold onto the wallet out of principle because robbery is immoral?
  
  The man with the gun to his head doesn't have much of a choice if he wants to live. You, though, have a choice between criticising and defending the man with the gun, and you're choosing to defend him.
  
  Bruv you're not this dense. NATO, an alliance constructed for the express purpose of destroying Russia, which did not disband when the USSR was destroyed, which continued to advance towards and encircle Russia for decades after the fall of the USSR, which refused the RF's attempts to join the alliance, which has engaged in numerous illegal wars of aggression, is the man holding the gun and I swear to god just because you were born there that does not make them the good guys.
  
  Ohhhh, I get hexbear now.
  Wow, what an amazingly terrible worldview.
  “I told you I was going to rob you if you tried to defend yourself, it’s your fault.”
  
  That's the genesis of the word "tankie", much misused today: they say they are communist, but then advocate for the law of the strongest and can't conceive of an alliance that isn't more than vassalage and sending in the "tanks" against their allies to ensure they don't fall out of line. That's why everyone ran away from the Warsaw Pact when it ended whereas NATO endured.
  
  It's actually appalling how much seething hate they have towards communists
  
  Alone, you do what you do to stay alive.
  That's why the world and people need its alliances, unities and consequences for harmful actions. The world doesn't work by giving up to the worst offender.
  Russia is holding a gun to Ukraine's head and saying it'll both kill and take everything.
  
  The world doesn't work by giving up to the worst offender.
  Yeah it does. Everyone does what America says or America either coups their leader or launches an illegal war of aggression and starts slaughtering their people. I
  
  lol, thug ethics. AKA offensive realist geopolitics. The great do what they want and the small accept their fate.
  
  Jesus christ bro Realpolitik is all there is and all there has ever been. When you live on a planet where a bunch of gerotocratic psychopaths could push the big red button at any time you don't play games. You know America is the baddies, right?
  
  There is no ethics between capitalist states, there are only stratagems for how to exploit everyone else and not get exploited yourself.
  Rhetoric about liberal world orders and rules and ethics are just propaganda to keep their own people complacent, like providing indulgences to themselves. They are wildly inconsistent and the self-named "good guys" carry out the absolute worst violence.
- you do know there's been an ongoing civil war in Ukraine since 2013 and that fascists have been genociding Russian speakers in the independent republics that have been trying to split off from Ukraine in that time, right? and you know that Ukraine violated multiple peace treaties in the process of doing so?
  
  And we know that the separatist fascists are Russian plants. The future will tell us how much there's a real independence movement instead in the areas.
  Nevertheless, conquering and genociding whole Ukraine is not approvable
  
  the idea that no one can think for themselves and must all be plants, shills, or dupes because they don't support your worldview is just plain racist. those damn asiastics, how could they possibly want to live their own lives and be free from shelling by a coup government that's trying to annihilate them -- it must be plants.
  
  Yes. We don't need entertain such ideas from who have them
  
  engage with people as people and acknowledge that they very frequently have needs, wants, and desires that cut against your myopic worldview.
  
  Exactly, that's what I'm saying
  (*Some people's myopic worldview)
  
  should I take this to mean you recant your earlier statement about the Ukranian separatists being plants?
  
  We shouldn't entertain myopic worldviews like everyone is a plant even though we know of some
  We can assume good out of most and be critical of bullshit. Also helpful advice for avoiding misunderstandings :)
  
  : |
  That is certainly a take.
  Do you know what the very first action of the coup rada was?
  
  I actually do not, tell me.
  
  The very first thing the Rada did when they were installed after the coup was ban the use of the Russian language in all official capacities. The country had been de-facto multilingual up until that point, though legally you were supposed to use Ukrainian. Give the ethnic and regional nature of the coup, ie Galacians vs everyone out East, it sent a pretty strong message which was received and understood in Donbas.
  
  I didn't realize that was the very first act of the Rada. I was thinking it was appointing Natalie Jaresko as finance minster. She was an American who became a Ukrainian citizen the same day she was appointed as finance minister. That happened a lot later than I thought though.
  
  Those lifelong Ukrainian trade unionists locked in their union hall and set on fire? Yeah, just fascust Russian plants.
  How did I arrive at such a smart and correct thought? I get that question a lot. Listen, tankie
- Ukraine and Georgia have their own decisions to make
  Then "the west" should let them make their own decisions instead of instigating coups everytime they decide against western interests.
  
  Of course, in the most simplified form. But I take it you maybe don't mean Monaco or Uruguay or Botswana etc.
  
  Yes I mean "the west" in the geopolitical term, not the geographical term. I think it's the one that gets the point across the clearest. I could also use the term imperial core or imperial triad, but I'm not sure if many would understand it.
  
  Yeah I get it. It somewhat scratches off Botswana.
  Imperial core or triad is an interesting and new take yes... Could be USA+Russia+China. Isn't that more than "the west". Some can't decide if Russia is west or not.
  I see some applying that term to US and changing the rest between anyone maintaining neutral relations with them. Yeah probably not an accurate idea.
  
  The imperial triad is actually an old term, coined by Samir Amin I think, it refers to the co operation between the USA, Europe and Japan. Hence the usage of triad. And imperial because they are the old school imperial and colonial powers.
  This is why I prefer using "the west", because people generally know what I'm talking about. As illustrated by your comment assuming the imperial triad could refer to USA + China + Russia, instead of the actual definition.
  
  Yeah sounds good for it's time. It seems both are becoming outdated to tell the big picture.
  
  Was West Germany an imperial state?

The US dares to coup a democratically elected government, and then its neighbor invades at the behest of people the new government were persecuting after two different ceasefires are broken by Ukraines puppet government.

Dronies be like "oh no our wholesome smol bean azov fighters are being oppressed"

"And that's all I have to say about that."

You straight up butchered that straw man

He is in pieces

How could you do this

Tankies on Lemmy: "oh no, Russia is being oppressed"

Literally no one thinks this, but by all means, have fun in your fantasy land lol

You're commenting on an article explicitly saying the US isn't sending weapons for the purpose of defending Ukraine...

It's amazing how much they support imperialism when it's "their people" doing it.

Read Settlers
Siri, what's imperialism?
- Yes, you really should ask her what imperialism is if you don't think what Russia and China are doing is imperialism.
  
  Imperialism is when china and russia and the more china and russia the imperialister it is
  
  Siri please help the red fash tankies keep telling me to read Lenin.
That's because you don't understand what imperialism means. US/EU capital is looting and exploiting the former socialist block and controlling it through western capitalist media, NGOs, and military bases. That's imperialism. The Russians preventing Nazis from doing ethnic cleansing along their border and demanding not to be threatened with a gun to the head is not imperialism.
- Funny how living standards in the ex-soviet countries have improved considerably since joining the EU, but that has not been the case for the ones that chose to be kept under Russia's sphere of influence. 🤔
  Looks like the EU is really bad at looting, they should learn from Russia.
  
  living standards in the ex-soviet countries have improved considerably since joining the EU
  Yeah the living standards sure did improve after one of the worst demographic disasters in that era. Easy for things to get better when you start from the bottom I mean come on do better.
  
  Have some compassion, some people just want to crank their knob to exploitative porn without questioning why so much of it comes from Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Ukraine, and Russia.
  
  Thank you for calling this out. It's fucking gross how that happens. If I speak about what should happen to "sexpats", I'll be in trouble. Big big trouble.
  
  Feel like clawing your eyes out?
  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/26/ukrainian-refugees-increasingly-targeted-for-sexual-exploitation-research-finds
  
  So, why didn't Belarus improve at the same rate as the Baltic countries?
  They both started from the bottom, right?
  
  So, why didn't Belarus improve at the same rate as the Baltic countries?
  If you think that the answer to this is simply "because Russia bad" you have the mind of a child.
  
  Eastern European countries that opened to western trade and diplomatic relationships improved significantly.
  Eastern European countries that became Russian puppets didn't.
  Explain that.
  
  imagine ignoring the absolutely ruthless, western led cannibalization of the former soviet union and pretending history's baseline started AFTER the largest decline of living standards in global history.
  human trafficking, prostitution, alcoholism, food/energy insecurity, diseases of despair all exploded when the west forced capitalism and privatization onto the former soviet union in the immediate aftermath. Gorbachev thought he was going to get some easy-going nordic social democracy, but instead the west carved up their public sector like a christmas ham. maybe you were too young, but in the 1980s the propaganda portrait the west had of russian women were all heavy-set, ugly babushkas. suddenly, after 1989, the mail order beautiful russian bride phenomenon exploded. they were fleeing the gutting of the public sector and the shattering of the social safety net, which made it near impossible to raise a family in the eastern bloc without becoming a sex worker.
  the west sponsored every retrograde nationalist reactionary psycho to undermine any hint of democratic resistance to economic liberalization schemes and bombed the shit out of infrastructure (Yugoslavia) whenever they could get away with it. the west has the most blood on its hands for the aftermath of the USSR, but people like you want to ignore those early days and then claim credit for the "winners" the west propped up in the aftermath of all that chaos. like a killer who torched a town but kidnapped a few kids and now touts his heroic rescue of them. the most ignorant and disgusting take.
  
  You seem to be ignoring the fact that after the fall of the USSR, Russia didn't want their assets to be sold or leased to western companies (understandably), so they let corrupt officials take them for pennies of what they were actually worth. Those officials became the oligarchs.
  Russians cannibalised Russia.
  
  the word you are striving not to say is capitalism. capitalists did this to russians, using the playbook developed and advocated for by western institutions.
  
  God you're just... so fucking close to getting it.
  What would have happened if instead of the Russian capitalists privatizing all the people's assets the western capitalists did?
  Do you think it wouldn't just be western oligarchs cannibalizing Russia?
  
  yes, capitalism is marked by class war, between the class who own things, and the class who labor. liberalizing the Soviet bloc destroyed the prospects of the working class.
  
  Babybrain
  
  The Balts were immediately used as forward positions for NATO and were allowed to keep their state programs and industry. Belarus got the same treatment as Russia.
  You should probably know the answer to your own snarky questions before you ask them.
  
  So, what you're saying is that the countries that sided with the West got a better deal than the ones that became Russian puppets?
  
  When a country joins the western bloc, they join them.
  When a country joins any other multinational pact, they're puppets.
  I'm not influenced by western propaganda
  
  Two capitalist nations fucking over their subjects is not the own you think it is
  
  They didn't improve at all. The rich are better off, thanks to mass privatization of public property. For the middle/working class, quality of life stagnated at best.
  Source: I live in an ex-soviet country.
  
  There was a massive dip in all those places in the 90s with shock therapy. A lot of people are still worse off in a lot of ways and angry. Hence AfD, Orban, PiS and all those other angry nationalists.
  Also, if you want to be fair, you should compare for example Poland to west Germany. Polish workers toil for German capitalists, and yet, somehow, they're getting exploited way more than the German workers. Less pay, worse services, worse infrastructure, less worker's rights. That whole arrangement is super-exploitative. Meanwhile foreigners bought most of that country. Treated like a colony basically.
  The Russians got fucked even worse than Poland in the 90s, which resulted in a backlash which Putin made himself the head of. What Russia is doing is self-preservation. Any state with the means to preserve it's sovereignty from a hostile takeover would try to do so, it's not just something an imperialist state would do. Hence Russia is not doing an imperialism here.
  
  Hell, compare East Germany to the ~~reich~~ West Germany. West Germany's economic conquest of East Germany was incredibly ruthless and brutal, and East Germany never recovered from having it's entire economy pillaged and burned.
  
  And east german lgbt rights and women's rights lost half a century of progress during reunification.
  
  Yeah. It's still technically illegal to get an abortion in the reich afaik. It was really something finding out that the gdr had gender parity in most fields before the west crushed it, and that western germany had to give women a bunch of rights to try to manage to political turmoil.
  
  Reading those east German men be like "yeah I prefer it now that women have to stay with me for economic reasons, before you had to be like, interesting and care about them or something" really drives it home in a different way too.
  
  That was physically painful when I first saw some of those quotes. We've just lost so much potential.
  
  since joining the EU
  I hope you understand how this is an incredibly cherry-picked range. It's like saying "look how steadily the American economy grew from the period of 1930 to 1940".
  Many Eastern European countries in the EU are still being hollowed out and suffering massive brain drain. The model of "tributary state" accurately applies here.
- Are these nazis in the room with us right now?
  
  no they're not here. they're over in ukraine putting up statues of Bandera and wearing nazi symbols all over their military uniforms. were you not listening, or...?
  
  Don't forget putting the OUN... er... ukrainian trident on that old monument.
  
  And the Blood and Soil flags that are very common.
  
  I mean, you're not gonna like it, but;
  CW: Like over a hundred fotos that all have some kind of Nazi imagery in them, except one where I think they mistook a patch for the 14th Waffen SS Grenadiers 1st Galacian patch because it has similar elements
  https://imgur.com/a/8Oo74F9
  They've been open and pretty frank about their goals. I can explain all the symbols and their history and significance for you if you'd like.
  
  I'm sorry to break it to you but are you aware of the Wagner group that has been fighting for Russia? They're pretty Nazi as well and yet hexbear keeps cheering for Russia anyway, saying the only way to end the war is to have Ukraine give in to them. For some reason Ukraine has to be the bigger man, but Russia, the actual aggressor, who is also employing Nazi fighters, can't?
  
  1.) Killing Nazis is not a tit for tat thing. Everyone should kill all the Nazis they can.
  2.) Most of us are not cheering for Russia. This is not a sports game. There is not a goodguy and a badguy. The only thing I want out of this war is for the killing to stop and NATO's hegemonic power diminished. No one is going to "win" this. Hundreds of thousands of people are dead. Nazis are emboldened and proliferating throughout Eastern Europe. Vast amounts of weaponry have gone missing and will begin being used in terror attacks in the next few years. Much of Ukraine's last remaining state industries and farmland have been sold off the multinational vultures. The massive infrastructure damage in Ukraine is never going to be repaired. You're treating this like a movie with a hero and a villain where someone wins and someone loses. That's not how geopolitics work. The idea that Russia is an "aggressor" shows both ignorance of history and a failure to understand the security concerns of modern states and how conflcit is conducted. So many people have this very naive model un view that the lines on the map are real and you can be sovereign when you don't have nukes. There's a studious refusal to engage with the reality that NATO routinely engages in hostile wars of aggression and that countries all over the world will defend themselves from that to the best of their ability, regardless of your concept of morality or rule of law. Russia is intensely aware of what NATO did to Libya, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Syria. They're intensely aware of NATOs decades of sabotage and subversion, of death squads and assassins, of coups and coercion. And you can refuse to engage with that or understand it if you want. I can't force you to acknowledge the world as it really is. But this ridiculous "oh Russia has Nazis so it" s okay that Nazis occupy positions of influence throughout Ukraine" thing is obnoxious. Round up all of Wagner and shoot them. I don't care. Mercenaries are scum. I don't care what happens to them. Nazis should be hunted down and killed regardless of where they are, not armed and emboldened.
  
  Your words don't match your attitude. You guys constantly berate Ukraine and defend Russia, even when it has similar problems. The only actual solution you have is to have Ukraine give up and surrender sovereignty to Russia. The only place I agree with you is that all Nazis are bad.
  And Russia is the one who attacked, that makes it the aggressor. Ukraine wasn't even joining NATO until they made it seem more alluring, and even then their membership is still an open question, so none of that matters. And if NATO did attack Russia, then they would be the aggressor, and I would be arguing against them, because Russia would have the right to defend itself, just like Ukraine does. But it wasn't. They just wanted territory. You guys also seem to just take Russian propaganda as truth, generally taking their reasons as good faith, claiming genocides against Russian speaking people's (even though the President is one) just because they specified the official language or saying some Nazi terrorists are a reason to obliterate the country (even though Russia has some, too, as does the US. It doesn't mean I want someone invading to stop them, destroying my house and shit). It would be like if some terrorists attacked the US and that was used as a reason to obliterate a country, or two. You claim you see the world as it really is, even though Russia didn't have to attack and none of this had to happen. It reminds me of conservatives who are always telling people on the left to open their eyes and see how the world really is.
  
  I mean you're here so, kinda yeah

Even some otherwise good regular leftists have absolute dogshit takes on Ukraine. It's like they're allergic to even being coincidentally on the same side as the US State Department that they start falling all over themselves to be like "Remember guys, US Bad," and start like saying that we should be pushing Ukraine to give up territory to appease Russia so they don't use nukes. When we already know because of Crimea that Putin will almost certainly just regroup and try again if they give him anything.

Yes, I couldn't understand it, because to most NATO members, NATO is the backbone of their security, but I've realised that many lefties' reaction to NATO is akin to atheists' emotional-dogmatic view of religion: They're ever suspicious, never forgive nor forget past crimes, they reject all redeeming qualities and twist themselves to oppose benefitting them at the axiom level.
I would say most leftists (specially the libertarian type), are not on the side of Russia on this.
Tankies have just been really loud with their mental gymnastics lately.
OK so you're siding with the state dept on Ukraine but when was the last time you agreed with usa foreign policy around the world? Why do you think they're in any way acting on behalf of anyone in eastern Europe?
- I don't think there's been another time once in the twenty plus years that I've been concerned with politics have I agreed with the position of the state department. But to me that means that I for damn sure am not about to interrupt them when they're finally for once in my life taking the morally correct action in funding the defense of Ukraine. I'll save that for when they inevitably get back on their bullshit thanks.
- So because the US has pulled a bunch of bullshit over the last several decades they shouldn't get involved when there is a real evil to fight? That's a boneheaded take. What if it was actual real Nazis? What if Nazis got ahold of a country in Europe and started invading and putting people into death camps? Should the US just say "I don't know man, we've fucked up in the middle east, south America, and southeast Asia so much we're just going to sit this out"?
  Yes, western imperialism is bad. No, everyone opposed to western imperialism is not necessarily good.
  Think of it as broken clock being right twice a day. Think of it however you need to. Russia needs to lose in Ukraine. And if that means the west gets a propaganda "win", that sucks but just deal with it. Western countries getting egg on their faces isn't worth letting Russia rape, murder, and steal.
- And here it is, perfect example.
- Whataboutism

Russia invades a neighbour who dares to attempt to have stronger ties to the west.

You mean a western led coup with assistance from neo nazis to remove the democratically elected government of Ukraine in 2014. With the explicit goal of "Latin Americanising" Eastern Europe and privatizing and selling off all their assets. The Ukrainian government still has a website up today for selling off anything not bolted down to the highest bidder. Shock doctrine 2.0.

West supplies neighbour with weapons to defend itself.

You mean forcing Ukraine to start a counter offensive using NATO combined arms tactics for witch Ukraine had neither the equipment or required training to execute. And with no will from the west to give Ukraine the required equipment (F-16 saga anyone?). How do you do a combined arms offensive without a fully functional air force? The worst part being that the west knew this, and still forced Ukraine to go ahead with the offensive anyways, knowing there was little chance of success.

Tankies on Lemmy: "oh no, Russia is being oppressed"

More like people saw this coming and think the loss of life over this attrition war is tragic. How does Ukraine win an attrition war against Russia? What is the exit plan? This is just Afganistan all over again in some ways.

The west forced Ukraine to defend itself?
Were they supposed to welcome the Russians with open arms?
- I believe they mean by continuously sabotaging peace accords and talks
  
  Yeah exactly. What has Ukraine accomplished since the sabotaged peace talks by Boris Johnson? Is the territory gained vs Russia since then worth all the life lost, the economic cost, etc.
- They were supposed to not ethnically cleanse Russian speaking people in the eastern provences for 8 years, repeatedly breaking treaties and making threats about hosting nuclear weapons for NATO.
  And the US was supposed to not support a violent coup to overthrow the democratically elected government and replace it with a one aligned with the fascist militias they used in that coup.
  If this had happened to a weastern ally we would be at war to liberate the entire country let alone protect the regions facing immediate violence.
Well, those definitely are some words.

I thought 'tankie' came from a video game. Turns out it's been around since the USSR decided to roll into Hungary.

The Hungarian uprising was killing Jews in the street. It was anti-Semitic from the beginning and the “Jewish Bolshevik” idea from the Nazi era was a motivating factor with the fact several leaders of the Hungarian government were Jewish cited as a battle cry.
https://www.jta.org/2006/10/25/lifestyle/1956-crises-decimated-two-communities
After the uprising, 200,000 Hungarian Jews fled the country fearing it signaled a return of the antisemitism of the recent Nazi-collaborationist regime of the 1940s.
Sending the tanks in to stop this was a good thing. It would have been better if the anti-Semitic uprising was stopped before the pogroms started.
- Ok tankie
Yup. Thankfully they were able to crush the revolt before the fascists were able to re-establish the Arrow Cross Party.
- oh shit hexbearites are talking about hungary again, gotta ditch the thread lmao
Órban still has fond memories of that...he was 7 in 1956, he probably remembers.
- Which is funny, since crushing the revolt was the only reason it took people like Orban so long to regain power.

I hope we can keep supporting Ukraine. This is one of the few times in history when the scenario is so clear cut good vs evil. The Ukrainians fought hard to get out from under the thumb of Russia and the Russians just couldn’t have that so they invaded. The support the world provides to Ukraine is support provided for all Democracies.

Democracy is when you ban all left-leaning parties in your country and burn a hall full of trade unionists alive, and the more parties you ban and trade unionists you burn alive the more democratic you are. I don't see what's so hard for these tankies to get!!
- They didn't just ban the left-wing parties they also seized all their assets.
- Plenty of communist countries ban all but one party, and some even suppress trade unions, and you guys are still willing to call them democratic.
  
  Interesting, do you have a source for this? Any particular countries you'd like to critique?
  
  China, Cuba, Vietnam all allow only one political party. As for suppressing trade unions, there's the Jasic incident in China in 2018, where they tried to organize a union and strike and they fired all of them. Despite being Maoist in nature, they were detained, arrested, beaten, and disappeared by the police. And they generally have low rates of trade unions participation.
Yeah, clearcut good is when a government starts building monuments to Holocaust perpetrators, and banning minority languages including Yiddish, followed by a decade of bombing ethnic minorities in a border region.
- Did they ban Yiddish, too? I hadn't heard that, and it's weird given that almost all Ukrainian Jews fled long ago to get away from, you know, Ukrainian Nazis.
  
  The 2019 language law has carve outs for English, and national minority languages that are EU languages. Russian, Belarusian and Yiddish specifically don't get exempted.
  
  It's cool though there's definitely no ethnic cleansing component to this war, nosiree.
I liked that part of the unalloyed good where your heroes locked a hundred ethnically unalloyed bad people in a building and burned them alive
- I really don't think a lot of the libs know that happened, or anything about the racial animosity of the right wing nationalist cough* Nazi cough* Galacians, or the ethnic makeup and goals of the coup Rada, or really much of anything about what's happening.
The Ukrainians fought hard to get out from under the thumb of Russia
What?
- Euromaiden!?!??? Like a major defining moment in Ukrainian history!
  
  The one where NATO backed coup overthrew the democratically elected government of Ukraine? That seems like the opposite of fighting to get out from under foreign thumb
  
  The one that happened because their leader was passing laws making him a dictator and violently putting down protesters leading to more protests causing him to flee. Also any support came after that was over, not before.
  
  See, if he were a legitimate leader he would have let the west supplant him in a violent coup WITHOUT reacting to it. That makes it justified post hoc.
  You have to let the nazis march. It's the rules.
  
  So people in their country should never fight if their leader is working to surpress their rights and become a dictator. They just have to wait for elections that will never be fair again if they even happen. Also he did react to it by fleeing, Putin is not the leader of Ukraine, he has no business reacting to anything.
  Putin did march his nazies into Ukraine after that if that's what you mean.
  
  Were you at the January 6th riots, per chance? Your sure have the same reasoning as them.
  
  Not in the US as I never been there. Also was Biden becoming the dictator of the US? Like if he was declaring protests illegal, giving cops legal rights to kill anyone who does protest and basically make himself the supreme ruler of the US then yea it would be justified.
  
  The January 6 protesters certainly believed he was becoming a dictator. I guess the riots were justified.
  
  I mean there's a recording of Victoria Neuland talking about setting it up from months before but whatever.
  
  Ah yes, the same point 30 other have brought up as well even though what was said was who they would think the leader is going to be which they, to no ones surprise, said the leader of the opposition, ya know, the guy who would be in power if their system worked like it should. That's like someone saying they like the guy as leader that got all the votes.
  
  But the guy who actually got all the votes was yanukovich.
This is one of the few times in history when the scenario is so clear cut good vs evil.
I mean yeah, if you ignore like 200 years of history, then entire history and purpose of NATO, any understanding of the nature of geopolitics and power whatsoever, everything about the economics and politics of all the involved parties, the entire timeline of events between 2013 and now, and a number of other things, it would be clear cut.
Ukraine is Harry Skywalker and Russia is ebil Darth Voldemord. How much more clear could it be?

Tankies on Lemmy: "oh no, Russia is being oppressed"

Said literally no one here, besides you trying to frame communism as war loving imperialists.

Now that I'm speaking of war loving imperialists, what does that bring to mind?..

I regret to inform you that you have failed your introduction to 21st century history class

Like just little things.

Do you know that the Russian Black Sea Fleet is based in Sevastopol? Did you know that it's an incredibly important strategic asset? What do nation states do when an incredibly important strategic asset is threatened? Do they defend it?

Did you know Crimea has a 30 year long history of seeking more autonomy, or even independence, from Ukraine?

Do you know what the very first action of the coup Rada was?

Do you know what "encirclement" means?

I know Plato's Allegory of the Cave gets used a lot when discussion the hegemonic power of western propaganda over western people, but come on bruv.

Do the words "Minsk II" mean anything to you?

Are you aware of the tariff agreements in place between Russia and Ukraine in 2013?

Do you know who Bandera was?

Do you know what the Russian Federation's stated causus belli for the invasion is?

What do you know?

I don't have the time for the classic tankie "reply with a wall of text and deflections", I actually have a real job to attend to. But some main points.
Do you know that the Russian Black Sea Fleet is based in Sevastopol? Did you know that it’s an incredibly important strategic asset? What do nation states do when an incredibly important strategic asset is threatened? Do they defend it?
Do you also know that Russia took Sevastopol from Ukraine back in 2014?
Tell me, do you also support Israel's claims on Palestinian territory?
Do you know what the Russian Federation’s stated causus belli for the invasion is?
Yes.
Do you know what the causis belli for the US's invasion of Iraq was? Are you stupid enough to believe that one as well? Or does believing causus belli only applies to whatever country is not an ally of the US?
What do you know?
I know you should get a gold medal on mental gymnastics and double standards.
- What you call "reply with a wall of text and deflections" is 90% of the time well informed and sourced discourse, you just dismiss it cause you can't argue with it.
  
  It's crazy how quick they turn into Westworld robots, you can show them the most airtight, well-sourced case to counter their empty vibes-based conjecture and they'll just go "That doesn't look like anything."
- jokey one-liners: you have no arguments
  
  well-reasoned point: I'm not reading all that, I have a job
  
  nonfalsofiable orthodoxy intensifies
- I don't have the time for the classic tankie "reply with a wall of text and deflections"
  This is literally a deflection to avoid dealing with the (inconvenient) basic facts you should've learned before having any opinion on this topic in the first place.
- Do you also know that Russia took Sevastopol from Ukraine back in 2014?
  Yes? Because the Black Sea Fleet is station in Sevastopol and Sevastopol is a vital strategic resource? Are we speaking the same language?
  Tell me, do you also support Israel's claims on Palestinian territory?
  Non-sequitor?
  Do you know what the causis belli for the US's invasion of Iraq was? Are you stupid enough to believe that one as well? Or does believing causus belli only applies to whatever country is not an ally of the US?
  ... Okay so you know that UA was shelling Donbass and killing people for years, and the Rada was very openly hostile to the Russian speaking Ukrainian minority, right?
  I know you should get a gold medal on mental gymnastics and double standards.
  Could I get a sticker instead?
  Also that's not a wall of text you dork it's like 10 sentences.
  
  Because the Black Sea Fleet is station in Sevastopol and Sevastopol is a vital strategic resource? Are we speaking the same language?
  So if the US has a fleet statinoned in another contry's territory, should they just be allowed to take it?
  Non-sequitor?
  What don't you follow?
  Do you also support US-backed countries to take territory as they see fit? Or does that only apply to countries you like?
  Okay so you know that UA was shelling Donbass and killing people for years, and the Rada was very openly hostile to the Russian speaking Ukrainian minority, right?
  A Russian-backed separatist group starts a conflict and Ukraine responds.
  Does Ukraine not have the right to defend their territory?
  Could I get a sticker instead?
  You can get some crayons to munch on.
  
  Does Ukraine not have the right to defend their territory?
  Do eastern ukrainians have a right not to be ethnically cleansed?
  
  Do eastern Ukrainians have a right to defend their own territory and invite guests to help?
  
  You're a very foolish person.
  
  Did the American-backed separatist group count in your brain too or the us backed razing of the USSR
  
  Shit, if all you have to do is park a fleet at a region and it's yours, I have been playing paradox games wrong this entire time
- I'll make it easier for you
  
  I actually have a real job to attend to.
  Can't be that important if you've got all this time lose arguments on the internet
- reply with a wall of text
  And here I thought that the classic tankie reply was low-effort trolling and shitposting.
- Tell me, do you also support Israel's claims on Palestinian territory?
  To the degree the Palestinians have used their self determination to say they want to be Israel and not Palestine
  You're really bad at analogies. You shouldn't lean on them to avoid direct investigation.
- You know you’re dealing with a pro-NATO bot when they say stupid boomer jokes like “well I have a job to go to”
  
  Hi bot! 👋
  
  Hi first-world revolutionary LARPer. 👋
  
  Hello, World!
- I don't have the time for the classic tankie "reply with a wall of text and deflections", I actually have a real job to attend to. But some main points.
  This whole "unlike you tAnKiEs I have a job" thing just makes you look insecure and childish.
  You know that, right?
  
  It really is the strangest appeal to authority I've ever seen.
  
  My ex father in law would always harp that he was more intelligent than my mom (he wasn't) cus he had more jobs than her
Eli5 that Pluto shit I toned out the Cave hard when I took a philosophy class
- I found this funny and topical example.
  Basically some dudes are tied up in a cave so they can only look forward. Behind them some other dude's are making shadow puppets. The tied up dudes think the shadow puppets are the real world because they can't look anywhere else and don't think there is anything else. But then there's something about if you're skeptical you can escape the cave and see the real world outside.
  
  The second part is important too: when someone escapes the cave and sees the outside world for the first time, it's painful because things are so bright. After a while, the escapee's eyes adjust, and they come to see how much better and more real the outside world is. They decide to go back and free their friends in the cave. But when they descend back down, their friends make fun of them because they can't see very well in the dark anymore and so aren't very good at talking about the shadows. Their friends think that they are just making up a big story about some magical "outside world" to cover for how bad they've gotten at talking about the shadows.