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While you claim to be objective, somehow you end up blaming US and protecting Russia and also blaming Ukraine. I proposed a reasonable starting point for the d

While you claim to be objective, somehow you end up blaming US and protecting Russia and also blaming Ukraine. I proposed a reasonable starting point for the discussion: Russia is the aggressor. It has no rights over Ukraine or over its decisions about its alliances. Ukraine is acting in its best interests how it sees possible given its own situation and international (geopolitical) realities. Yet you refuse it. Why?

EGreg 4y ago
Would you be able to say the same thing about USA: "USA is the aggressor. It has no rights over Laos / North Korea / Iran / Iraq / Libya / Afghanistan / Syria and its decisions about its alliances. Those countries are acting in the best interests how it seems possible given their own situation and international (geopolitical) realities." Why should North Korea or Iran trust the United States? Why should Taiwan trust China? This problem isn't unique to Russia but we do nothing about it. Only in Russia case we dial it up to an 11, everywhere else it barely makes headlines, instead we talk about Johnny Depp and Will Smith slapping someone. It's like if dozens of Black people were being killed every day in the USA, but we only cared about one specific Black person, gave him golden caskets, and made entire parades and even riots destroying Black neighborhoods, in his name. It's not that he deserved it more than the other Black people whose names we don't even know. It's that George Floyd was killed by police on camera, at a time when people were angry at police for lockdowns and protesting was the only way to let loose and go outside in a crowd. It's about the aggressor being the police, not George Floyd being somehow better than all the other Black people who are killed every day. This is the same phenomenon... It's like if 150 people were killed in Paris and the whole world lit up in French colors, but no one cared about the same size attack in Beirut by ISIS same day: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/16/world/middleeast/beirut-lebanon-attacks-paris.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/16/world/middleeast/beirut-l... It's like how right now Yemen and Ethiopea have MILLIONS of people in a crisis and we are only talking about Ukraine. It's because the topic is set by our governments and media, and the goal is to isolate Russia and starve it of resources. (But it turns out not to be so easy, because the East and half the world doesn't want to go along with it). And you can see this because Hillary called for a no-fly zone and closing the sky over Syria... before any Russian invasions or aggressions in Ukraine. USA isn't doing it for love of Ukrainians, the war hawks want to use ANY country to get Russia involved in a quagmire like ViatNam, Afghanistan or Iraq, to weaken it and use it as a reason to totally isolate it from the world. And Russia fell for it. Yes Russian leaders were that stupid, they couldn't match USA's cunning and couldn't get Minsk II done. They are far more inept strategically than USA.
- eveningcoffee 4y ago
  And this is again the essence of whataboutism and demonstration of its uselessness and harm. See, I tried to explain how it is reasonable to handle the question about Ukraine, but you, instead of interacting with the issue, flooded the medium with complete unrelated nonsense. You just flooded the medium with noise mostly. I think Ukrainians made a very correct observation about Chomsky https://blogs.berkeley.edu/2022/05/19/open-letter-to-noam-chomsky-and-other-like-minded-intellectuals-on-the-russia-ukraine-war/ https://blogs.berkeley.edu/2022/05/19/open-letter-to-noam-ch... "While you admittedly call the Russian invasion of Ukraine a “war crime,” it appears to us that you cannot do so without naming in the same breath all of the past atrocities committed by the U.S. abroad (e.g., in Iraq or Afghanistan) and, ultimately, spending most of your time discussing the latter." See also the example I made here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31602479 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31602479 Worse, the two issues you like to stress here constantly (Yemen, Ethiopia) are completely different in nature and have very different solutions as was explained here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31603138 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31603138 based on Yemen example. In fact, there is (for now) clear and straightforward solution to end the war in Ukraine but Yemen and Ethiopia are lacking such solution, so these 2 are even completely irrelevant to the problem at hand.
- eveningcoffee 4y ago
  There is also another notable observation. Whataboutism and victim blaming do go hand in hand with you. Again you are blaming Ukraine that it invited, or even conned Russia to attack. If Russia had any interest to follow Minsk agreements, it would have done so. Instead it did the opposite. It sent more heavy weapons and did not disarm and disband terrorist groups it had established in Donbas.
  - EGreg 4y ago
    Russia alone cannot implement Minsk agreements, it is for Ukraine to do so. Why is it worse than a huge war, to give your own citizens a way to vote, and promise not to bomb them? Explain to me that. Ukraine correctly stopped beating up the Euronaidan protests with Berkut, they should have sat down with the separatists too. You keep missing the point. Allow me to illustrate it this way: No one is perfect. Neither people nor countries have perfect records when they are faced with challenges. Expecting perfection is unreasonable. Let’s say that this is the 15th century Europe and baths and showers are rare. Coming to a person and saying “You stink! I can’t be around you.” is hypocritical if you yourself stink and everyone around you stinks. If stinking a certain amount is the norm for that level of civilization, then you have to take that into account when trying to address issues. If someone comes along and says to you, “look, you and your friends have not taken any showers recently either, and smelled even worse last year… this person had very good reason preventing him from taking a shower” what would be your reply? If it is the following… “That’s what aboutism! You are victim blaming! The complete and utter responsibility is on this person for stinking! Their stench is foul! Yes, perhaps somewhere, some other people did the same (huge understatement). But let’s focus on only this one case and take EXTRAORDINARY MEASURES to exclude THIS person from society.” “But when you and your friends did it, no one excluded you even a little bit…” “Well, mistakes were made back then, but we are wayyy cleaner than this person obviously. And besides, you are trying to distract from this one issue… we ALL have to band together teach this guy a lesson, if you are still talking to this person then you’rs a traitor and part of the problem and J must now shun you too”. This argument has numerous logical problems: 1. It sets one standard for the “target” to be “punished” after having had a completely different standard the entire time for oneself and one’s allies 2. It makes no promise to now use this new standard consistently going forward, no guarantee that the one calling for massive penalties will not continue to do that very thing or worse 3. It ignores far worse situations that are happening AT THE SAME TIME and were happening for years leading up to it, and doesn’t propose to do anything about them 4. It actively takes away support from real solutions that could prevent such situations from happening, within the current framework (diplomacy, eg Minsk agreements or deodorant/cologne for stinking) 5. It puts roadblocks in the way of improving the system, eg creating more mechanisms in International Law for peaceful self determination via voting to join a diff country, or requiring countries to give citizenship to native born children at least 2 generations in, etc. Again I ask, how can one point these problems out without engaging in “whataboutism”? Or we have to simply accept any hypocritical hysterical bullying or be told “we are part of the problem”, “on the wrong side of history” and deplatformed? You have to compare apples to apples. If all apples are a bit rotten, but you only focus on ONE apple rather than the problem of why apples rot, and not even the MOST rotten apples, then you are just hijacking the issue to attack one “enemy apple” you dislike. You are part of the “real problem”.

EGreg 4y ago

Would you be able to say the same thing about USA: "USA is the aggressor. It has no rights over Laos / North Korea / Iran / Iraq / Libya / Afghanistan / Syria and its decisions about its alliances. Those countries are acting in the best interests how it seems possible given their own situation and international (geopolitical) realities." Why should North Korea or Iran trust the United States? Why should Taiwan trust China? This problem isn't unique to Russia but we do nothing about it. Only in Russia case we dial it up to an 11, everywhere else it barely makes headlines, instead we talk about Johnny Depp and Will Smith slapping someone. It's like if dozens of Black people were being killed every day in the USA, but we only cared about one specific Black person, gave him golden caskets, and made entire parades and even riots destroying Black neighborhoods, in his name. It's not that he deserved it more than the other Black people whose names we don't even know. It's that George Floyd was killed by police on camera, at a time when people were angry at police for lockdowns and protesting was the only way to let loose and go outside in a crowd. It's about the aggressor being the police, not George Floyd being somehow better than all the other Black people who are killed every day. This is the same phenomenon... It's like if 150 people were killed in Paris and the whole world lit up in French colors, but no one cared about the same size attack in Beirut by ISIS same day: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/16/world/middleeast/beirut-lebanon-attacks-paris.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/16/world/middleeast/beirut-l... It's like how right now Yemen and Ethiopea have MILLIONS of people in a crisis and we are only talking about Ukraine. It's because the topic is set by our governments and media, and the goal is to isolate Russia and starve it of resources. (But it turns out not to be so easy, because the East and half the world doesn't want to go along with it). And you can see this because Hillary called for a no-fly zone and closing the sky over Syria... before any Russian invasions or aggressions in Ukraine. USA isn't doing it for love of Ukrainians, the war hawks want to use ANY country to get Russia involved in a quagmire like ViatNam, Afghanistan or Iraq, to weaken it and use it as a reason to totally isolate it from the world. And Russia fell for it. Yes Russian leaders were that stupid, they couldn't match USA's cunning and couldn't get Minsk II done. They are far more inept strategically than USA.

eveningcoffee 4y ago
And this is again the essence of whataboutism and demonstration of its uselessness and harm. See, I tried to explain how it is reasonable to handle the question about Ukraine, but you, instead of interacting with the issue, flooded the medium with complete unrelated nonsense. You just flooded the medium with noise mostly. I think Ukrainians made a very correct observation about Chomsky https://blogs.berkeley.edu/2022/05/19/open-letter-to-noam-chomsky-and-other-like-minded-intellectuals-on-the-russia-ukraine-war/ https://blogs.berkeley.edu/2022/05/19/open-letter-to-noam-ch... "While you admittedly call the Russian invasion of Ukraine a “war crime,” it appears to us that you cannot do so without naming in the same breath all of the past atrocities committed by the U.S. abroad (e.g., in Iraq or Afghanistan) and, ultimately, spending most of your time discussing the latter." See also the example I made here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31602479 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31602479 Worse, the two issues you like to stress here constantly (Yemen, Ethiopia) are completely different in nature and have very different solutions as was explained here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31603138 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31603138 based on Yemen example. In fact, there is (for now) clear and straightforward solution to end the war in Ukraine but Yemen and Ethiopia are lacking such solution, so these 2 are even completely irrelevant to the problem at hand.
eveningcoffee 4y ago
There is also another notable observation. Whataboutism and victim blaming do go hand in hand with you. Again you are blaming Ukraine that it invited, or even conned Russia to attack. If Russia had any interest to follow Minsk agreements, it would have done so. Instead it did the opposite. It sent more heavy weapons and did not disarm and disband terrorist groups it had established in Donbas.
- EGreg 4y ago
  Russia alone cannot implement Minsk agreements, it is for Ukraine to do so. Why is it worse than a huge war, to give your own citizens a way to vote, and promise not to bomb them? Explain to me that. Ukraine correctly stopped beating up the Euronaidan protests with Berkut, they should have sat down with the separatists too. You keep missing the point. Allow me to illustrate it this way: No one is perfect. Neither people nor countries have perfect records when they are faced with challenges. Expecting perfection is unreasonable. Let’s say that this is the 15th century Europe and baths and showers are rare. Coming to a person and saying “You stink! I can’t be around you.” is hypocritical if you yourself stink and everyone around you stinks. If stinking a certain amount is the norm for that level of civilization, then you have to take that into account when trying to address issues. If someone comes along and says to you, “look, you and your friends have not taken any showers recently either, and smelled even worse last year… this person had very good reason preventing him from taking a shower” what would be your reply? If it is the following… “That’s what aboutism! You are victim blaming! The complete and utter responsibility is on this person for stinking! Their stench is foul! Yes, perhaps somewhere, some other people did the same (huge understatement). But let’s focus on only this one case and take EXTRAORDINARY MEASURES to exclude THIS person from society.” “But when you and your friends did it, no one excluded you even a little bit…” “Well, mistakes were made back then, but we are wayyy cleaner than this person obviously. And besides, you are trying to distract from this one issue… we ALL have to band together teach this guy a lesson, if you are still talking to this person then you’rs a traitor and part of the problem and J must now shun you too”. This argument has numerous logical problems: 1. It sets one standard for the “target” to be “punished” after having had a completely different standard the entire time for oneself and one’s allies 2. It makes no promise to now use this new standard consistently going forward, no guarantee that the one calling for massive penalties will not continue to do that very thing or worse 3. It ignores far worse situations that are happening AT THE SAME TIME and were happening for years leading up to it, and doesn’t propose to do anything about them 4. It actively takes away support from real solutions that could prevent such situations from happening, within the current framework (diplomacy, eg Minsk agreements or deodorant/cologne for stinking) 5. It puts roadblocks in the way of improving the system, eg creating more mechanisms in International Law for peaceful self determination via voting to join a diff country, or requiring countries to give citizenship to native born children at least 2 generations in, etc. Again I ask, how can one point these problems out without engaging in “whataboutism”? Or we have to simply accept any hypocritical hysterical bullying or be told “we are part of the problem”, “on the wrong side of history” and deplatformed? You have to compare apples to apples. If all apples are a bit rotten, but you only focus on ONE apple rather than the problem of why apples rot, and not even the MOST rotten apples, then you are just hijacking the issue to attack one “enemy apple” you dislike. You are part of the “real problem”.