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It reaches far beyond that. Whether we have a dictatorship or a democracy, there is an apparatus that IGNORES the legitimate concerns of others, and for whom i

by EGreg 5y ago

It reaches far beyond that. Whether we have a dictatorship or a democracy, there is an apparatus that IGNORES the legitimate concerns of others, and for whom it is a net positive for their country to impose its will on others through violence. Eisenhower gave it a name in the US: the Military-Industrial-Congressional complex. And we can add the mainstream Media to that as well. To put it in perspective, what Russia was doing supporting the Donbass separatists against the Ukrainian government is what the US has been doing in Syria… What is currently being done by Russia is analogous to the bombing of Yugoslavia by NATO forces despite UN opposition, combined with a recognition of Kosovo’s independence, something that shocked Russians at the time… If Russia continues with a full scale invasion, occupation and regime change in Ukraine, that would be analogous to what USA did in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last few years. So the US has done it all, and other things too: propped up friendly rulers against rebels in Yemen, leading huge humanitarian crises trained guerillas against the government in Nicaragua and elsewhere trained dictators like Manuel Norriega in the School of the Americas installing friendly regimes around the world carved off and annexed large parts of Mexico in the Spanish American war Russia at least does it in its own back yard and to protect its interests. USA goes all around the world and for some reason sees fit to be a “world police”. But both are incredibly imperialistic. And of course, Russia’s freedom of speech internally is far worse than in USA. But when USA does it, it never gets any sanctions. So there is no threat of escalation to nuclear mutually assured destruction. When Russia does it, the same actions are criticized badly by the world, but everyone is afraid to escalate further because of the nuclear consequences.

propagandist 5y ago
And the same frequencies that were dominant in 2003 are now shutting out the other voices. The Bill Kristols and David Frums are going to awaken from their hibernation. It's pointless to argue really--there's 0 hope that we'll do anything differently. To be clear, there are limited options now wrt to Ukraine. Nobody wants to go to war with Russia. But being hardline and not pragmatic means we'll set ourselves up for similar issues in the next few years and decades. We strung Ukraine along knowing we wouldn't come to their six when it counted. Honesty has to be the preferable approach.
- EGreg 5y ago
  There is only one thing that will secure peace in Europe NATO has to invite Russia to join. Or Russia has to apply. Someone has to go first, but neither country’s nationalist cold war war hawks would do it. That’s why we need moderates in office. Trump should have done it, but it never occurred to him to di that!
  - propagandist 5y ago
    It's not really an easy situation. There were many complications even with states like Greece, Turkey, and (North) Macedonia. I cannot imagine what Poland and the other formerly occupied states would do if Russia were invited. At the end of the day, NATO was created to counter the USSR. When the USSR collapsed, we had an opening to integrate Russia, and we squandered it. That was the real opportunity.
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      A Russia under a dictator has no place in NATO.
      - EGreg 5y ago
        Would you be willing to risk nuclear armaggeddon for pedantic principles of NATO membership? I’d gladly violate them to literally eliminate a whole host of terrible scenarios once and for all. George W Bush wasn’t a “dictator” but he and his inner circle got us into the war in Iraq which destroyed huge swaths of the middle east. Perhaps in practice, the US President can wreak just as much if not more havoc than a Russian one?
        jacquesm 5y ago
        Ah, the good old 'if you don't do what we want you to do we'll nuke you' argument. Let me know what borders for the renewed USSR you find acceptable. Should they include Poland? Maybe former East Germany or France perhaps?
ailun 5y ago
It’s important to keep pointing these things out. I’m not quite as pessimistic as some who believe that the US will continue to do these things forever; I believe the US populace is slowly waking up to what has been done in their names. While people may quibble with the motivations and morality of individual incidents that you’ve mentioned, overall I haven’t heard convincing arguments that they’ve made the world safer overall. The Yugoslavia situation, for example, was pretty complex and I could debate the differences with Ukraine all day, without disagreeing with your overall point. But I also feel that it’s important to acknowledge that if it was wrong for the US, it is wrong for Russia. There are too many people out there who aren’t really being sincere with their arguments and are using US crimes to justify Russian ones.
- roca 5y ago
  There's some of the latter, but there are also a lot of people whose single principle is "AMERICA BAD" and everything else follows from that. (I'm not even American)
- Paradigma11 5y ago
  A problem is that the US often intervened when things were in free fall like in Libya, Yugoslawia or were already horrible like in Afghanistan, Somalia. But by their intervention they are now responsible for everything that happened afterwards. Its like comparing the patient mortality rate of dermatologists with those of emergency doctors. Can you really compare Zelensky to Saddam Hussein, Assad or the Taliban? For example counterfactually i am pretty sure that Ruanda would have fared better with an intervention.
oblio 5y ago
Russia's backyard?!? You can't imagine how angry this makes me. Russia is twice the size of the US. Their direct "sphere of influence" was three times the size of the US. Romania, for example, never wanted to have anything to do with Russia, yet here we are 2500+ kms away from the Russian heartland, stressing out about this stuff, because apparently it's "Russia's backyard". We've been here 2000+ years, it's <<our>> backyard. The same goes for many of the countries next to Russia. And modern Russia, just like the USSR, is highly interventionist. Who do you think is propping up the Assads? Or was propping up Marxist militias in Latin America and in Africa?
- jacquesm 5y ago
  > You can't imagine how angry this makes me. Join the club, it seems to be in the water or something: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30454020 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30454020
- EGreg 5y ago
  I hear you, and I share severe criticism of USSR and USA imperialism. I condemn Russia’s imperialism, too. I am just saying that all of this is also true of the USA. The entire Caribbean is in USA’s sphere of influence. We toppled Hawaii’s kingdom and annexed that, too. Actually, the entire hemisphere, going back as early as President Monroe (200 years earlier) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_Doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_Doctrine USA seized territory during the Spanish-American war, which is now Texas / Arizona etc. In short, as angry as you are, I am sure many South American countries were and are angry at the USA as well, for propping up fascist dictators (Pinochet), or toppling regimes for fruit companies (Guatemala), or arming rebels (Nigaragua) in violation of our own laws (Iran-Contra affair) or training terrorists and dictators (School of the Americas). Whether or not we are “a dictatorship” is beside the point. I was simply pointing out that Donbas has ethnic Russians so it is more their business than Iraq was ours, Iraq has no credible threat to us at all. Neither do the dozens of other countries that USA effected regime change in. https://williamblum.org/essays/read/overthrowing-other-peoples-governments-the-master-list https://williamblum.org/essays/read/overthrowing-other-peopl...
  - 5y ago
roca 5y ago
Russia's interests aren't threatened by Ukraine in any way. Putin's interests are; every successful democracy on his border is a model that threatens his rule. The USA is far from perfect, but nearly all the interventions you listed were much more justified than what Putin is offering: the explicit aim of securing Ukraine as part of a new Russian empire, regardless of their will. (E.g. Afghanistan was a base for an attack on the USA; there was ethnic cleansing in Kosovo that needed to be stopped; populations in Syria do need to be protected. On the other hand as Devereaux points out, there isn't even a plurality of people in Donetsk and Luhansk in favour of secession, and Ukraine hadn't gone on the offensive against the separatists.) The argument "the USA has done bad things; therefore we should turn a blind eye when anyone does any bad thing" is total nonsense.
- EGreg 5y ago
  Rather the opposite: neither Russia nor USA should attack others who do not pose a threat to them. Stronger nations should listen to the concerns of others and meet to address them. Zelensky should have listened to Donbas separatists and met to address them (Minsk agreements) Russia should have listened to the Ukrainian democratically elected government and met to address them And yes, NATO should have listened to Putin and other Russian officials saying over and for years about the bright lines, and should have listened to internal voices including the architects of the USSR containment strategy WARNING about NATO expansion, and realized they should invite Russia into NATO. No one listens because of the apparatus within their country, and the idea that cities do not have self-determination, only countries do. People believe in their flag so much because of mass media and government schools, they are willing to kill and be killed for it. But if you look at a time-lapse of most places on the globe, you’ll see flags changing so quickly that you wonder what is the big deal. Most people if left alone would just earn money and raise their families.
  - drran 5y ago
    Currently, Ukraine hear cryings of Russian soldiers, when they are burning in their armor. We hear them very well. Mission accomplished?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

by EGreg 5y ago

propagandist 5y ago

And the same frequencies that were dominant in 2003 are now shutting out the other voices. The Bill Kristols and David Frums are going to awaken from their hibernation. It's pointless to argue really--there's 0 hope that we'll do anything differently. To be clear, there are limited options now wrt to Ukraine. Nobody wants to go to war with Russia. But being hardline and not pragmatic means we'll set ourselves up for similar issues in the next few years and decades. We strung Ukraine along knowing we wouldn't come to their six when it counted. Honesty has to be the preferable approach.

EGreg 5y ago
There is only one thing that will secure peace in Europe NATO has to invite Russia to join. Or Russia has to apply. Someone has to go first, but neither country’s nationalist cold war war hawks would do it. That’s why we need moderates in office. Trump should have done it, but it never occurred to him to di that!
- propagandist 5y ago
  It's not really an easy situation. There were many complications even with states like Greece, Turkey, and (North) Macedonia. I cannot imagine what Poland and the other formerly occupied states would do if Russia were invited. At the end of the day, NATO was created to counter the USSR. When the USSR collapsed, we had an opening to integrate Russia, and we squandered it. That was the real opportunity.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    A Russia under a dictator has no place in NATO.
    - EGreg 5y ago
      Would you be willing to risk nuclear armaggeddon for pedantic principles of NATO membership? I’d gladly violate them to literally eliminate a whole host of terrible scenarios once and for all. George W Bush wasn’t a “dictator” but he and his inner circle got us into the war in Iraq which destroyed huge swaths of the middle east. Perhaps in practice, the US President can wreak just as much if not more havoc than a Russian one?
      - jacquesm 5y ago
        Ah, the good old 'if you don't do what we want you to do we'll nuke you' argument. Let me know what borders for the renewed USSR you find acceptable. Should they include Poland? Maybe former East Germany or France perhaps?

ailun 5y ago

It’s important to keep pointing these things out. I’m not quite as pessimistic as some who believe that the US will continue to do these things forever; I believe the US populace is slowly waking up to what has been done in their names. While people may quibble with the motivations and morality of individual incidents that you’ve mentioned, overall I haven’t heard convincing arguments that they’ve made the world safer overall. The Yugoslavia situation, for example, was pretty complex and I could debate the differences with Ukraine all day, without disagreeing with your overall point. But I also feel that it’s important to acknowledge that if it was wrong for the US, it is wrong for Russia. There are too many people out there who aren’t really being sincere with their arguments and are using US crimes to justify Russian ones.

roca 5y ago
There's some of the latter, but there are also a lot of people whose single principle is "AMERICA BAD" and everything else follows from that. (I'm not even American)
Paradigma11 5y ago
A problem is that the US often intervened when things were in free fall like in Libya, Yugoslawia or were already horrible like in Afghanistan, Somalia. But by their intervention they are now responsible for everything that happened afterwards. Its like comparing the patient mortality rate of dermatologists with those of emergency doctors. Can you really compare Zelensky to Saddam Hussein, Assad or the Taliban? For example counterfactually i am pretty sure that Ruanda would have fared better with an intervention.

oblio 5y ago

Russia's backyard?!? You can't imagine how angry this makes me. Russia is twice the size of the US. Their direct "sphere of influence" was three times the size of the US. Romania, for example, never wanted to have anything to do with Russia, yet here we are 2500+ kms away from the Russian heartland, stressing out about this stuff, because apparently it's "Russia's backyard". We've been here 2000+ years, it's <<our>> backyard. The same goes for many of the countries next to Russia. And modern Russia, just like the USSR, is highly interventionist. Who do you think is propping up the Assads? Or was propping up Marxist militias in Latin America and in Africa?

jacquesm 5y ago
> You can't imagine how angry this makes me. Join the club, it seems to be in the water or something: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30454020 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30454020
EGreg 5y ago
I hear you, and I share severe criticism of USSR and USA imperialism. I condemn Russia’s imperialism, too. I am just saying that all of this is also true of the USA. The entire Caribbean is in USA’s sphere of influence. We toppled Hawaii’s kingdom and annexed that, too. Actually, the entire hemisphere, going back as early as President Monroe (200 years earlier) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_Doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_Doctrine USA seized territory during the Spanish-American war, which is now Texas / Arizona etc. In short, as angry as you are, I am sure many South American countries were and are angry at the USA as well, for propping up fascist dictators (Pinochet), or toppling regimes for fruit companies (Guatemala), or arming rebels (Nigaragua) in violation of our own laws (Iran-Contra affair) or training terrorists and dictators (School of the Americas). Whether or not we are “a dictatorship” is beside the point. I was simply pointing out that Donbas has ethnic Russians so it is more their business than Iraq was ours, Iraq has no credible threat to us at all. Neither do the dozens of other countries that USA effected regime change in. https://williamblum.org/essays/read/overthrowing-other-peoples-governments-the-master-list https://williamblum.org/essays/read/overthrowing-other-peopl...
- 5y ago

roca 5y ago

Russia's interests aren't threatened by Ukraine in any way. Putin's interests are; every successful democracy on his border is a model that threatens his rule. The USA is far from perfect, but nearly all the interventions you listed were much more justified than what Putin is offering: the explicit aim of securing Ukraine as part of a new Russian empire, regardless of their will. (E.g. Afghanistan was a base for an attack on the USA; there was ethnic cleansing in Kosovo that needed to be stopped; populations in Syria do need to be protected. On the other hand as Devereaux points out, there isn't even a plurality of people in Donetsk and Luhansk in favour of secession, and Ukraine hadn't gone on the offensive against the separatists.) The argument "the USA has done bad things; therefore we should turn a blind eye when anyone does any bad thing" is total nonsense.

EGreg 5y ago
Rather the opposite: neither Russia nor USA should attack others who do not pose a threat to them. Stronger nations should listen to the concerns of others and meet to address them. Zelensky should have listened to Donbas separatists and met to address them (Minsk agreements) Russia should have listened to the Ukrainian democratically elected government and met to address them And yes, NATO should have listened to Putin and other Russian officials saying over and for years about the bright lines, and should have listened to internal voices including the architects of the USSR containment strategy WARNING about NATO expansion, and realized they should invite Russia into NATO. No one listens because of the apparatus within their country, and the idea that cities do not have self-determination, only countries do. People believe in their flag so much because of mass media and government schools, they are willing to kill and be killed for it. But if you look at a time-lapse of most places on the globe, you’ll see flags changing so quickly that you wonder what is the big deal. Most people if left alone would just earn money and raise their families.
- drran 5y ago
  Currently, Ukraine hear cryings of Russian soldiers, when they are burning in their armor. We hear them very well. Mission accomplished?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]