4 ms·

> It’s pretty easy to look at North Korea, Cambodia, or Eastern Europe during the Cold War and say “hmm, it’s worth going to extreme lengths to prevent this fro

> It’s pretty easy to look at North Korea, Cambodia, or Eastern Europe during the Cold War and say “hmm, it’s worth going to extreme lengths to prevent this from happening elsewhere”. That may have been misguided in many instances, but the basic motivation is sound. Careful, this is literally Moscow's reason for its invasion of Ukraine -- to prevent the rise of a hostile fascist entity in its frontyard.

solveit 5y ago
A bad actor claiming reasonable motivation does not make the motivation unreasonable... Obviously you have to also be sincere (debatable in Russia's case) and correct (Russian claims are simply wrong).
- pessimizer 5y ago
  Russian claims of an interest in controlling the government of Ukraine are at least as legitimate as US claims of an interest in controlling Korea, or Afghanistan.
  - solveit 5y ago
    And is the Ukrainean state actually fascist? How about Korea? In the absence of UN intervention, would there have arisen an authoritarian state that was a menace to not only its own citizens but every neighbouring country? Clearly Ukraine is not fascist and Korea would have been. There is a difference.
    - pphysch 5y ago
      North Korea is fascist, but harmlessly so. Despite endless flexing and threat inflation, they haven't actually done much harm since invading the South 70 years ago. The main problem with fascism in Nazi Germany, Zionist Israel, and Banderite Ukraine is that these fascist states have overt policies of ethnic cleansing. IOW the "fascism" part isn't necessarily bad (unless you are a liberal chauvinist), it's the ethnic cleansing part that is bad.
      - kelnos 5y ago
        > Banderite Ukraine This is something that... doesn't really exist today? I mean, sure there are still nazis in Ukraine, even in its government and military, but by and large it doesn't seem that they're anywhere near a majority or have significant influence... despite what Putin's propaganda would like us to believe. > IOW the "fascism" part isn't necessarily bad (unless you are a liberal chauvinist) If you truly believe that, I don't think you're going to have a productive discussion on this topic here. Most people here (myself included) would not characterize hard-right authoritarianism that way. I believe that form of government is objectively bad for the people under it, at least those outside the ruling class.
        pphysch 5y ago
        > If you truly believe that, I don't think you're going to have a productive discussion on this topic here. Of course; many folks here are ideologically hyper-individualists, liberals, liberal anarchists, libertarians, etc. The idea that various collectivisms including "fascism" are okay is offensive to those ideologies. However, the onus is not on me to pander to their ideological limitations.
      - throwaway894345 5y ago
        In what sense is NK’s fascism “harmless”? In the nuclear sense or in the oppression sense or something else?
      - solveit 5y ago
        I suppose you're not concerned about the misery they inflict on their own citizens? While they don't do ethnic cleansing per se (not many ethnicities to cleanse in North Korea), they absolutely do wipe out entire bloodlines for crimes of a single member. And I won't even get into the rest of their human rights record. Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, they also semi-regularly engage in armed conflict with South Korea, killing usually tens of people, and they occasionally kidnap foreign nationals. Admittedly small fare for a rogue state. They also have nukes but it must be fine since they haven't used them yet.
  - throwaway894345 5y ago
    Yes, but the salient distinction is that the US doesn’t want to control either place.
kelnos 5y ago
Except Ukraine isn't a "hostile fascist entity", and Putin knows that. Ukraine is (well, sadly, was) in danger of becoming more democratically- and West-aligned, which Putin (irrationally, IMO) feared, but my take on it is that he's really motivated mostly by fallen-empire envy. (Granted, that's just my opinion; I don't know what Putin is actually thinking.)
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- pphysch 5y ago
  We're seeing the fascism part of full display as Zelensky refuses to surrender, instead preferring to throw civilian bodies to the altar in sacrifice of the Nation. Imagine cheering on Saddam Hussein as he hopelessly hung onto power and sacrificed thousands of innocents. This is precisely what the Western establishment media is doing right now, modulo Zelensky, because he's the "good guy". The hostile part has been obvious for 8 years, and escalated last year. 14,000 dead, war declared on Russian Crimea last year, etc.
  - pegasus 5y ago
    Is that you, Putin?

solveit 5y ago

A bad actor claiming reasonable motivation does not make the motivation unreasonable... Obviously you have to also be sincere (debatable in Russia's case) and correct (Russian claims are simply wrong).

pessimizer 5y ago
Russian claims of an interest in controlling the government of Ukraine are at least as legitimate as US claims of an interest in controlling Korea, or Afghanistan.
- solveit 5y ago
  And is the Ukrainean state actually fascist? How about Korea? In the absence of UN intervention, would there have arisen an authoritarian state that was a menace to not only its own citizens but every neighbouring country? Clearly Ukraine is not fascist and Korea would have been. There is a difference.
  - pphysch 5y ago
    North Korea is fascist, but harmlessly so. Despite endless flexing and threat inflation, they haven't actually done much harm since invading the South 70 years ago. The main problem with fascism in Nazi Germany, Zionist Israel, and Banderite Ukraine is that these fascist states have overt policies of ethnic cleansing. IOW the "fascism" part isn't necessarily bad (unless you are a liberal chauvinist), it's the ethnic cleansing part that is bad.
    - kelnos 5y ago
      > Banderite Ukraine This is something that... doesn't really exist today? I mean, sure there are still nazis in Ukraine, even in its government and military, but by and large it doesn't seem that they're anywhere near a majority or have significant influence... despite what Putin's propaganda would like us to believe. > IOW the "fascism" part isn't necessarily bad (unless you are a liberal chauvinist) If you truly believe that, I don't think you're going to have a productive discussion on this topic here. Most people here (myself included) would not characterize hard-right authoritarianism that way. I believe that form of government is objectively bad for the people under it, at least those outside the ruling class.
      - pphysch 5y ago
        > If you truly believe that, I don't think you're going to have a productive discussion on this topic here. Of course; many folks here are ideologically hyper-individualists, liberals, liberal anarchists, libertarians, etc. The idea that various collectivisms including "fascism" are okay is offensive to those ideologies. However, the onus is not on me to pander to their ideological limitations.
    - throwaway894345 5y ago
      In what sense is NK’s fascism “harmless”? In the nuclear sense or in the oppression sense or something else?
    - solveit 5y ago
      I suppose you're not concerned about the misery they inflict on their own citizens? While they don't do ethnic cleansing per se (not many ethnicities to cleanse in North Korea), they absolutely do wipe out entire bloodlines for crimes of a single member. And I won't even get into the rest of their human rights record. Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, they also semi-regularly engage in armed conflict with South Korea, killing usually tens of people, and they occasionally kidnap foreign nationals. Admittedly small fare for a rogue state. They also have nukes but it must be fine since they haven't used them yet.
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  Yes, but the salient distinction is that the US doesn’t want to control either place.

kelnos 5y ago

Except Ukraine isn't a "hostile fascist entity", and Putin knows that. Ukraine is (well, sadly, was) in danger of becoming more democratically- and West-aligned, which Putin (irrationally, IMO) feared, but my take on it is that he's really motivated mostly by fallen-empire envy. (Granted, that's just my opinion; I don't know what Putin is actually thinking.)

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
pphysch 5y ago
We're seeing the fascism part of full display as Zelensky refuses to surrender, instead preferring to throw civilian bodies to the altar in sacrifice of the Nation. Imagine cheering on Saddam Hussein as he hopelessly hung onto power and sacrificed thousands of innocents. This is precisely what the Western establishment media is doing right now, modulo Zelensky, because he's the "good guy". The hostile part has been obvious for 8 years, and escalated last year. 14,000 dead, war declared on Russian Crimea last year, etc.
- pegasus 5y ago
  Is that you, Putin?