War in Ukraine: both sides are wrong

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By both sides I mean US vs Russia:

--- The US resists Putin even though Putin never attacked US, he only attacked Ukraine

--- Putin resists Ukraine's alleged nazis even though they never attacked Russia, whatever they do they only do in Ukraine



a) But they are doing the same thing now by getting involved in the Russia-Ukraine affair, and you are not denouncing that

b) Even though most people denounced the war in Iraq, the condemnation of US was not as severe as the current condemnation of Russia. I mean, back at the time of the war with Iraq, they didn't put US under all those sanctions they are putting Russia under.

Poland next?

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/no ... np2sv1plus

Well that's an obvious reason to pay attention to whatever Putin does, but I leave that to the Intelligence ministries and would prefer to discuss something else at the dinner table.

However, that is not what this gentleman had in mind. This is somebody, in their early 70s, who apparently became a political exile and didn't return to the US until the Carter administration, instead living for years in a country from which he couldn't be extradited (I suppose). Disclaimer: I have inferred some of this from what I do know of his personal history as I don't really know anything about the circumstances surrounding his leaving the US. Anyway, it's my impression he sympathized strongly with the USSR during the Cold War and that he transferred those sentiments to Russia in the 90s. He has sometimes spoken of turning to rt.com for its perspective on current events, and has spoken very highly of Tulsi Gabbard beginning with the 2016 election. During that election, although he never expressed any support for Donald Trump, he spent most of his time sharing whatever adverse information he had acquired concerning Hillary Clinton, clearly feeling more animosity towards her than towards Trump (he in fact voted 3rd party in that election which is what he always has done). For example, he voted for Ralph Nader in 2000.

Anyway, that's what I was talking about.

Thats a good point: Ukraine's citizens never asked Putin for help to deal with Nazis -- and in fact they kept making a point they don't need his help.

But now lets take a hypothetical scenario. Imagine that there were some Ukrainian's citizens that were asking Putin's help. Do you think it would be wrong for Putin to invade Ukraine in this hypothetical case?

They've been barking like that for the last 20 years - but I guess that's why you can understand why we help Ukraine every way we can. If Russia succeeds and NATO fails, we would be next.
So, our interest in helping Ukraine is survival of the world where we can exist.

When "help" is represented as "invasion", I think it is wrong no matter which foreign country initiates it.

Some of my compatriots, while I'm not sure about their current claims, did claim to be asking for this "help" in the past.
And as a faction that disagrees with them, I will never allow it.

I don't think an invasion would be justified. Intervention, maybe - in a situation of an objective serious distress - but it always needs to be limited to what one asks for and minimize colateral damage.

I don't think Putin is likely to ever respect those boundaries.

I think it's not just "Putin".
No country is selfless. Even if you have a good starting point in a short period of time, it is difficult for you to restrain all executors.

That's why it's important to make sure you are the one to decide what kind of help you need and to what extent.

*sigh*

Ukraine isn’t exactly a nation of perfect angels, either. They still struggle with corrupt oligarchs.

But that’s an internal issue for the Ukrainian people to fix. Russians dislike Ukraine because Ukraine is a sort of gateway to the west and has the power to disrupt Russia’s chokehold on oil and gas. Belarus is exactly the same. The difference between Ukraine and Belarus is Belarus still thinks it’s part of the Soviet Union while Ukraine wants nothing to do with Russia. Russia still maintains control over Belarus as a puppet state. Ukraine has been more resistant to Russian influence.

Iraq is a weak state that asserted its dominance over smaller nations who were friendly to the United States. There was a strong interest among Iraqis to depose Hussein, establish a democracy, and open up friendly relations with the West. It was easy to get control over and occupy Iraq with minimal loss of life. That’s just how you fight a war. You do what it takes to win.

As to whether the US was right to do it…I think both the ends and means were justified. However, I’m no longer convinced that was our war to fight. It’s not our job to protect the sovereignty of Kuwait. It’s our job to protect our own people from attack.

Aside from gas disputes, which is an economic and trade issue, not a military issue, Russian and Ukraine have little to do with each other. Certainly nothing worth going to war over. Ukraine is Russia’s version of our Vietnam. We’re finding out Russia is not nearly as strong militarily as anyone thought, certainly not as strong as the US. Ukrainians aren’t weak. They aren’t as strong as Russia, but they have clearly shown the ability to wage a protracted war of attrition that Russia is not equipped for. The only reason nobody wants to commit troops to Ukraine is Russia’s nuclear deterrent and the dreaded prospect of a great big bear hunt in a country with enough land to swallow up any invading army and 100 bears for each soldier in that army. There’s no beating Russia in a fair fight. So Ukraine is ultimately on the right side of history by repelling Russian attacks and not caving to their demands.

Should the US get involved? I don’t think so any more than Iraq. If it’s not our war, we should stay out of it.

They have historic and cultural ties.

The United States and the UK have historic and cultural ties, so can’t we just invade the UK?

Or heck…consider our little problem with immigration. Everyone from Mexico wants to get over here so bad. Why don’t we just invade Mexico?

The cultural tie excuse is not even remotely a justification for invading Ukraine. The problem is that Ukrainians are a distinctive culture apart from Russia. They don’t even speak the same language.

I disagree with all of this except the last part. All that "fighting to protect our freedom" stuff was meretricious propaganda just like what Putin is feeding his people. In fact, I really think most Americans agree with me on this, and Trump was able to cynically take advantage of that sentiment as part of his scheme to become President.

It is really not in the best interest of the EU to let the Russians run roughshod over Ukraine.

There would be a legit “domino” effect should the Russians succeed in Ukraine. Who’s next? Maybe Poland, maybe Finland?
Maybe Moldova?

Russia wants, at least, to possess the territory the USSR possessed….plus their sphere of influence in Eastern and Central Europe.

And their overall ideology is regressive and repressive; they want full authoritarian dominion over all those peoples. And they seek to stifle independent thought.

Imagine if we stopped Nazi Germany in 1938 as far as Czechoslovakia was concerned….and stopped them from re-militarizing themselves prior to this? Hitler might have been stopped, and WW II prevented in Europe.

Yes, hindsight is 20/20, and I don’t often indulge in hindsight. But it seems to me that history will repeat itself if Putin is allowed to be successful.

It is well-documented that Iraq used chemical weapons against the Kurds and others in the 80s and 90s.

So Iraq got Invasion as punishment in 2003?
The US also has an equally colorful history of race.