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You either accept a moral responsibility to protect sovereign nations from elimination, and elimination at this point was stated by Russian officials and media

by yks 4y ago

You either accept a moral responsibility to protect sovereign nations from elimination, and elimination at this point was stated by Russian officials and media as a goal numerous times, or you accept the Russian position of "lands and peoples belong to the strong men" and we're back to the age of conquest, but now with nukes. Not only the former position is morally right, but it also prevents or at least postpones the nuclear proliferation. This is not only about Ukraine, this is about the whole Eastern Europe, and literally about post WW2 order that you seem to be enjoying the fruits of, if only by hanging out on Hacker News.

remarkEon 4y ago
I don't recall the United States and Ukraine signing a mutual defense pact, or a treaty that designates the United States as the guarantor of Ukrainian independence. The former position you are advocating for literally amounts to "the United States is the Global Empire, and all changes in state arrangements must be approved by Her". That's fine, but just make that your argument. Trying to morally guilt trip people is pointless because there's at least a dozen other conflicts around the world right now where you can make the same argument, about some country's sovereignty being violated. >This is not only about Ukraine, this is about the whole Eastern Europe, and literally about post WW2 order that you seem to be enjoying the fruits of, if only by hanging out on Hacker News. I'm not sure what purpose you think this sentence serves. If your argument is, again, the United States is the Global Imperial Power and, because I post on HN, I am balking in my responsibility to sufficiently support this Empire, then got it. I'll make sure to "do better".
- yks 4y ago
  > a treaty that designates the United States as the guarantor of Ukrainian independence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Security_Assurances https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit... > there's at least a dozen other conflicts around the world right now where you can make the same argument Which other conflict is waged with the goal of eliminating the country completely and destroy its culture? There were no major conflicts of this kind since WW2. Changing the government, plenty of times, but not erasing borders with the cultural genocide and some forced children "relocation" on top of that. I didn't say anything about the US as a global empire or whatever, it's the collective World's responsibility to maintain peace and it's failing. But I say that there are clear "good guys" and "bad guys" here, regardless of the history of the US.
  - remarkEon 4y ago
    I see the Budapest memo referenced a lot but, obviously, it's a memo ... about ways to get rid of nukes. It's not a treaty that obligates anything at all from the United States or anyone else in terms of security support or guaranteeing Ukrainian sovereignty. I will grant, however, that the Ukrainians (and the Russians, we made promises to them in it too) probably feel pretty slighted with how history turned out in the ensuing decades. From your link: >>Another key point was that U.S. State Department lawyers made a distinction between "guarantee" and "assurance", referring to the security guarantees that were desired by Ukraine in exchange for non-proliferation. In the end a statement was read into the negotiation record that the (according to the U.S. lawyers) lesser sense of the English word "assurance" would be the sole implied translation for all appearances of both terms in all three language versions of the statement. >Which other conflict is waged with the goal of eliminating the country completely and destroy its culture? There's a lot going on in Africa and the Horn. More or less all feature some degree of genocide or mass killings, objectives of replacing the current government, or redrawing the lines on the map. >There were no major conflicts of this kind since WW2. This is absolutely not true. Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan (the first one), Myanmar and a couple others I'm forgetting all were an order of magnitude larger than this one in terms of casualties. Maybe you mean this is the first major conflict of this kind in Europe since WWII, in which case... maybe, because you'd have to omit Yugoslavia. There's room to argue about that one. Not sure why that's relevant, unless we're going back to the insistence about the United States' role in security on the European continent.
    - tlear 4y ago
      Problem for US and rest of NATO is that Baltic countries ARE in NATO. Once Ukraine goes Vilnus is next. Is USA ready to fight a conventional war in the Baltics? With what manpower? Germany is utterly useless right now and will be for the foreseeable future, French army is way too small same with UK. Very soon you might have to go to the Nukes.. It is much cheaper and safer to fight this war in Ukraine rather then trying to liberate Lithuania
      - remarkEon 4y ago
thrwy_meta 4y ago
>>>You either accept a moral responsibility to protect sovereign nations from elimination And yet we've been arming the Saudis while they starve and bomb the Yemenis into oblivion for the past 10 years. >>>This is not only about Ukraine, this is about the whole Eastern Europe https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/Wars-are-only-evil-when-Westerners-are-the-victims https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/Wars-are-only-evil-when-West... https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/02/civilised-european-look-like-us-racist-coverage-ukraine https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/02/civili... I find the degree to which HN has taken umbrage with this particular war.....unsurprising, yet extremely telling.
- grey-area 4y ago
  So don’t do that either. I agree there is rampant hypocrisy and that should stop too. That is not an argument against supporting Ukraine.

by yks 4y ago

remarkEon 4y ago

I don't recall the United States and Ukraine signing a mutual defense pact, or a treaty that designates the United States as the guarantor of Ukrainian independence. The former position you are advocating for literally amounts to "the United States is the Global Empire, and all changes in state arrangements must be approved by Her". That's fine, but just make that your argument. Trying to morally guilt trip people is pointless because there's at least a dozen other conflicts around the world right now where you can make the same argument, about some country's sovereignty being violated. >This is not only about Ukraine, this is about the whole Eastern Europe, and literally about post WW2 order that you seem to be enjoying the fruits of, if only by hanging out on Hacker News. I'm not sure what purpose you think this sentence serves. If your argument is, again, the United States is the Global Imperial Power and, because I post on HN, I am balking in my responsibility to sufficiently support this Empire, then got it. I'll make sure to "do better".

yks 4y ago
> a treaty that designates the United States as the guarantor of Ukrainian independence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Security_Assurances https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit... > there's at least a dozen other conflicts around the world right now where you can make the same argument Which other conflict is waged with the goal of eliminating the country completely and destroy its culture? There were no major conflicts of this kind since WW2. Changing the government, plenty of times, but not erasing borders with the cultural genocide and some forced children "relocation" on top of that. I didn't say anything about the US as a global empire or whatever, it's the collective World's responsibility to maintain peace and it's failing. But I say that there are clear "good guys" and "bad guys" here, regardless of the history of the US.
- remarkEon 4y ago
  I see the Budapest memo referenced a lot but, obviously, it's a memo ... about ways to get rid of nukes. It's not a treaty that obligates anything at all from the United States or anyone else in terms of security support or guaranteeing Ukrainian sovereignty. I will grant, however, that the Ukrainians (and the Russians, we made promises to them in it too) probably feel pretty slighted with how history turned out in the ensuing decades. From your link: >>Another key point was that U.S. State Department lawyers made a distinction between "guarantee" and "assurance", referring to the security guarantees that were desired by Ukraine in exchange for non-proliferation. In the end a statement was read into the negotiation record that the (according to the U.S. lawyers) lesser sense of the English word "assurance" would be the sole implied translation for all appearances of both terms in all three language versions of the statement. >Which other conflict is waged with the goal of eliminating the country completely and destroy its culture? There's a lot going on in Africa and the Horn. More or less all feature some degree of genocide or mass killings, objectives of replacing the current government, or redrawing the lines on the map. >There were no major conflicts of this kind since WW2. This is absolutely not true. Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan (the first one), Myanmar and a couple others I'm forgetting all were an order of magnitude larger than this one in terms of casualties. Maybe you mean this is the first major conflict of this kind in Europe since WWII, in which case... maybe, because you'd have to omit Yugoslavia. There's room to argue about that one. Not sure why that's relevant, unless we're going back to the insistence about the United States' role in security on the European continent.
  - tlear 4y ago
    Problem for US and rest of NATO is that Baltic countries ARE in NATO. Once Ukraine goes Vilnus is next. Is USA ready to fight a conventional war in the Baltics? With what manpower? Germany is utterly useless right now and will be for the foreseeable future, French army is way too small same with UK. Very soon you might have to go to the Nukes.. It is much cheaper and safer to fight this war in Ukraine rather then trying to liberate Lithuania
    - remarkEon 4y ago

thrwy_meta 4y ago

>>>You either accept a moral responsibility to protect sovereign nations from elimination And yet we've been arming the Saudis while they starve and bomb the Yemenis into oblivion for the past 10 years. >>>This is not only about Ukraine, this is about the whole Eastern Europe https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/Wars-are-only-evil-when-Westerners-are-the-victims https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/Wars-are-only-evil-when-West... https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/02/civilised-european-look-like-us-racist-coverage-ukraine https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/02/civili... I find the degree to which HN has taken umbrage with this particular war.....unsurprising, yet extremely telling.

grey-area 4y ago
So don’t do that either. I agree there is rampant hypocrisy and that should stop too. That is not an argument against supporting Ukraine.