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Of course Russian bots should be blocked. Why would anyone else support LESS defence by Ukraine? What a bizarre idea.

Consultant32452 4y ago
The US got Ukraine into this war in the first place by intentionally provoking Russia into it. Obama admitted to committing the 2014 coup in Ukraine and then refused to go so far as to provide weapons because he said Russia would likely escalate. Trump gave them weapons and then Russia responded to that escalation by invading. Even if you're okay with all of that, the US is not trying to help Ukraine win, it's trying to make the war as long and as expensive as possible for Russia. The US is sacrificing Ukrainian lives to harm Russia.
- astrange 4y ago
  Ukraine has had two elections since then, hasn't kept the people elected in 2014 (Zelensky was elected as the the pro-Russia candidate), certainly didn't like the corrupt Yanukovych who you're claiming the US couped, and the US has been giving Ukraine distance weapons like HIMARS so… no? Though, Poroshenko (the guy who was elected in 2014 post-revolution and is some kind of chocolate factory oligarch) fled the country over a prosecution but has since come back to fight in the national guard, so it seems like even he's in favor of it.
  - Consultant32452 4y ago
- Calavar 4y ago
  The one commonality I've seen across virtually all these anti-Western narratives on the Ukraine conflict is that they completely ignore the agency of Ukraine as an independent nation state. It's never that Ukrainians took to the streets in 2014 because their government was corrupt and undemocratic (literally imprisoning the leader of the opposition party), it's that they took to the streets because the US artificially manufactured dissent. It's never that Ukraine had an independent desire to increase defense spending after it suffered military humiliation and loss of territory in 2014, it's that the West armed Ukraine to agitate against Russia. Anything that could be interpreted either as an independent action by Ukraine or a Western intervention is automatically labeled as the latter without any explanation as to why. The irony, of course, is that the only three things in this story that are unambiguously interventionist are Russia's 2014 invasion, the 'proxy' war between 2014 and 2022, and the 2022 invasion. There is simply no other way to slice it - Ukraine didn't invite foreign troops in to come and start shelling things. That is the elephant in the room that is never brought up in these narratives.
  - Consultant32452 4y ago
    I find the bigger problem is people can't understand that often there's just bad guys vs bad guys. Sure, Putin is an evil, murderous dictator who belongs in prison for the rest of his life. Now, what should happen to Obama for committing the coup in Ukraine? He bragged about negotiating the coup before the previous leaders had to flee and the Assistant Secretary of State and Ukrainian ambassador were caught on tape talking about "midwifing this thing in" and making sure their hand-selected candidate became the leader. I find there's nothing bad enough I can say about Putin that allows anyone to even consider any nuance.
    - Calavar 4y ago
      Sometimes it is just bad guys versus bad guys. I don't think that's the case here, but let's humor that argument. Good and bad isn't a simple binary - it's a scale. And I have yet to see an anti-Western narrative on the Ukraine war that doesn't use vastly different yardsticks of what is acceptable behavior for the West versus Russia.
      - Consultant32452 4y ago
        That's a silly thing to say to someone who literally just said Putin is an evil, murderous dictator who deserves to be in prison for the rest of his life. Is there any level of condemnation I could give him that would allow you to have a discussion about the US role in this situation?
        Calavar 4y ago
        I don't think you understood my comment. It's not about how evil you or I think Putin is. It's about drawing false equivalencies. Let's say for the sake of argument that Euromaidan was 100% manufactured by Obama. (I strongly disagree, but I'll give you that one for now.) A couple of hundred people died in the protests and riots. So far, by the Kremlin's own account, 100x to 200x that number have died in the 2022 invasion. Millions have been displaced. Entire towns and villages have been reduced to rubble. People are dying in Sri Lanka from famines because of the lack of Ukranian grain. How are you going to look anyone straight in the face and them that these evils are comparable? This is what I mean when I say that every anti-Western narrative I've seen on this war uses different yardsticks for Russia and the West. Putin murdered 100 people? Well Obama killed 1 so it's really not that different is it? It's like asking a judge to give a thief who pocketed a candybar and a thief who robbed into a bank at gunpoint equal sentences because "both of them are thieves." I'd prefer not to have a thief as a roommate, but if my choices were a candybar thief or a bank robber, I know who I'd choose. You don't need a PhD in philosophy to understand this concept. I'm am not sure if you are to arguing in bad faith or if you are sincere, but the drawing of false equivalencies is a favorite tool of those who argue in bad faith.
- jussij 4y ago
  The reason Ukraine is at war with Russia is because Ukraine refused to accept Putin's puppet leader, Viktor Yanukovych. The Ukrainians got fed up with Viktor Yanukovych and his corrupt government so they voted him out. That annoyed Putin so he hit back with the invasion of Crimea and then he really pushed his luck with a full scale invasion of Ukraine.
  - Consultant32452 4y ago
    Ukraine is at war with Russia because the US couped the Russian puppet leader, replaced him with a US puppet leader, and then trained and armed an anti-Russian military on Russia's border.
    - jussij 4y ago
      The coupe you speak of was the Ukrainian General Election. In the west that is referred to as democracy.
      - Consultant32452 4y ago
        You do know Ukraine had a violent coup in 2014, executed by Obama, and the democratically elected pro-Russian leader had to flee for his life? This isn't a conspiracy theory, Obama bragged publicly about how he brokered the deal for the unconstitutional transfer of power to his hand picked choice. If you didn't know, consider what that means about your news sources. Even if it doesn't change your positions on Ukraine, the US overthrew a country and it wasn't big enough news that they made sure you knew it. It's just a random interview buried on CNN or whatever.
        jussij 4y ago
        The event in 2014 that you refer to was the Revolution of Dignity and once again the concept of revolution goes hand in hand with the concept of democracy. Revolutions only happen when the people of a country are so fed up with their lack of democracy they revolt.
usrn 4y ago
- lovich 4y ago
  The bizarreness is acting like anything other than complete deference to Russia is “escalating”, but that’s besides the point.
kbelder 4y ago
Well, bots should be blocked. But I think Russian plants should be allowed to post. They're obvious, and I think they do more harm to Russia than benefit. We're the West. We thrive on freedom that would make Russian tyrants squirm. We can handle some dissent, even as we (figuratively) tear them apart.

The US got Ukraine into this war in the first place by intentionally provoking Russia into it. Obama admitted to committing the 2014 coup in Ukraine and then refused to go so far as to provide weapons because he said Russia would likely escalate. Trump gave them weapons and then Russia responded to that escalation by invading. Even if you're okay with all of that, the US is not trying to help Ukraine win, it's trying to make the war as long and as expensive as possible for Russia. The US is sacrificing Ukrainian lives to harm Russia.

astrange 4y ago
Ukraine has had two elections since then, hasn't kept the people elected in 2014 (Zelensky was elected as the the pro-Russia candidate), certainly didn't like the corrupt Yanukovych who you're claiming the US couped, and the US has been giving Ukraine distance weapons like HIMARS so… no? Though, Poroshenko (the guy who was elected in 2014 post-revolution and is some kind of chocolate factory oligarch) fled the country over a prosecution but has since come back to fight in the national guard, so it seems like even he's in favor of it.
- Consultant32452 4y ago
Calavar 4y ago
The one commonality I've seen across virtually all these anti-Western narratives on the Ukraine conflict is that they completely ignore the agency of Ukraine as an independent nation state. It's never that Ukrainians took to the streets in 2014 because their government was corrupt and undemocratic (literally imprisoning the leader of the opposition party), it's that they took to the streets because the US artificially manufactured dissent. It's never that Ukraine had an independent desire to increase defense spending after it suffered military humiliation and loss of territory in 2014, it's that the West armed Ukraine to agitate against Russia. Anything that could be interpreted either as an independent action by Ukraine or a Western intervention is automatically labeled as the latter without any explanation as to why. The irony, of course, is that the only three things in this story that are unambiguously interventionist are Russia's 2014 invasion, the 'proxy' war between 2014 and 2022, and the 2022 invasion. There is simply no other way to slice it - Ukraine didn't invite foreign troops in to come and start shelling things. That is the elephant in the room that is never brought up in these narratives.
- Consultant32452 4y ago
  I find the bigger problem is people can't understand that often there's just bad guys vs bad guys. Sure, Putin is an evil, murderous dictator who belongs in prison for the rest of his life. Now, what should happen to Obama for committing the coup in Ukraine? He bragged about negotiating the coup before the previous leaders had to flee and the Assistant Secretary of State and Ukrainian ambassador were caught on tape talking about "midwifing this thing in" and making sure their hand-selected candidate became the leader. I find there's nothing bad enough I can say about Putin that allows anyone to even consider any nuance.
  - Calavar 4y ago
    Sometimes it is just bad guys versus bad guys. I don't think that's the case here, but let's humor that argument. Good and bad isn't a simple binary - it's a scale. And I have yet to see an anti-Western narrative on the Ukraine war that doesn't use vastly different yardsticks of what is acceptable behavior for the West versus Russia.
    - Consultant32452 4y ago
      That's a silly thing to say to someone who literally just said Putin is an evil, murderous dictator who deserves to be in prison for the rest of his life. Is there any level of condemnation I could give him that would allow you to have a discussion about the US role in this situation?
      - Calavar 4y ago
        I don't think you understood my comment. It's not about how evil you or I think Putin is. It's about drawing false equivalencies. Let's say for the sake of argument that Euromaidan was 100% manufactured by Obama. (I strongly disagree, but I'll give you that one for now.) A couple of hundred people died in the protests and riots. So far, by the Kremlin's own account, 100x to 200x that number have died in the 2022 invasion. Millions have been displaced. Entire towns and villages have been reduced to rubble. People are dying in Sri Lanka from famines because of the lack of Ukranian grain. How are you going to look anyone straight in the face and them that these evils are comparable? This is what I mean when I say that every anti-Western narrative I've seen on this war uses different yardsticks for Russia and the West. Putin murdered 100 people? Well Obama killed 1 so it's really not that different is it? It's like asking a judge to give a thief who pocketed a candybar and a thief who robbed into a bank at gunpoint equal sentences because "both of them are thieves." I'd prefer not to have a thief as a roommate, but if my choices were a candybar thief or a bank robber, I know who I'd choose. You don't need a PhD in philosophy to understand this concept. I'm am not sure if you are to arguing in bad faith or if you are sincere, but the drawing of false equivalencies is a favorite tool of those who argue in bad faith.
jussij 4y ago
The reason Ukraine is at war with Russia is because Ukraine refused to accept Putin's puppet leader, Viktor Yanukovych. The Ukrainians got fed up with Viktor Yanukovych and his corrupt government so they voted him out. That annoyed Putin so he hit back with the invasion of Crimea and then he really pushed his luck with a full scale invasion of Ukraine.
- Consultant32452 4y ago
  Ukraine is at war with Russia because the US couped the Russian puppet leader, replaced him with a US puppet leader, and then trained and armed an anti-Russian military on Russia's border.
  - jussij 4y ago
    The coupe you speak of was the Ukrainian General Election. In the west that is referred to as democracy.
    - Consultant32452 4y ago
      You do know Ukraine had a violent coup in 2014, executed by Obama, and the democratically elected pro-Russian leader had to flee for his life? This isn't a conspiracy theory, Obama bragged publicly about how he brokered the deal for the unconstitutional transfer of power to his hand picked choice. If you didn't know, consider what that means about your news sources. Even if it doesn't change your positions on Ukraine, the US overthrew a country and it wasn't big enough news that they made sure you knew it. It's just a random interview buried on CNN or whatever.
      - jussij 4y ago
        The event in 2014 that you refer to was the Revolution of Dignity and once again the concept of revolution goes hand in hand with the concept of democracy. Revolutions only happen when the people of a country are so fed up with their lack of democracy they revolt.

usrn 4y ago

lovich 4y ago
The bizarreness is acting like anything other than complete deference to Russia is “escalating”, but that’s besides the point.

kbelder 4y ago

Well, bots should be blocked. But I think Russian plants should be allowed to post. They're obvious, and I think they do more harm to Russia than benefit. We're the West. We thrive on freedom that would make Russian tyrants squirm. We can handle some dissent, even as we (figuratively) tear them apart.