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AP fires reporter behind retracted ‘Russian missiles’ story
- exabrial 4y agoI’m glad cooler heads prevailed. A lesson for the rest of us to wait for facts and stop being outraged by everything the press throws at us. That being said, Russia still is shit; and we wouldn’t be in this situation if they weren’t attacking civilian infrastructure in an attempt to freeze Ukrainians to death.
- throwawaymedia 4y agoWhat Russia is doing is the result of something else. That something else is the root cause of the war in Ukraine.
- int_19h 4y agoYes, that would be the Russian neo-imperial ambitions becoming mainstream. I watched it happening gradually back when I lived in the country - fiction books about war "against Nazis" in Ukraine started showing up in mid-00s, and one first became a hit in 2008.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- maximinus_thrax 4y agoI agree with you. The root cause is the complete erosion of civil society in Russia, the failure of the state to create and maintain a democracy and the failure of the West to turn Russia into a North Korea early on, when everyone figured out that the gangsters are actually running the country.
- throwawaymedia 4y agoWhy should the West do anything on the opposite side of the globe? Why does the West only care about democracy in the countries with a lot of natural resources? Oh yea, that must be a pure coincidence.
- piva00 4y agoSo you don't believe in democracy? What exactly do you believe in, can't really tell because you are a coward hiding behind a façade slinging shit.
- ghufran_syed 4y agoThe americans, germans, french and every other country in the world are all “shit” by those standards - they have all done the same and would do the same again if their “national security objectives” required it. Ukraine would do the same to Russia if it could, the reason they aren’t is logistic, not moral. In every war, the propagandists try to promote the view that this war is a “good” or “just” war - they are all wrong, just slightly different in their degree of “wrongness”.
- idontwantthis 4y agoButwhatabout!
- duxup 4y agoThis war seems pretty a straightforward as far as an unnecessary war of aggression goes. And frankly it seems just as sad to see Russian soldiers throw into the fight to die by their own government.
- elevaet 4y agoSo what's your point? Should we join hands and welcome Russia to help themselves in Ukraine? This whataboutism around Ukraine is emblematic of the problem with misaligned postmodern thinking. The fact of the matter is that Russia has violently invaded Ukraine and they are trying to bend Ukraine against its will. It's wrong and the world _should_ come to their side. Likewise if the tables were turned.
- oa335 4y agoCompare and contrast Russian invasion with the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq: https://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/usa1203/4.5.htm https://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/usa1203/4.5.htm
- ajross 4y agoTwo-decade-stale whataboutism doesn't change anything about the morality of the war in Ukraine or what our response to it should be. There are plenty of bad guys in the world for you to hate. The question should be what are you going to do about it today? Today, it's clear where the bad guys are. Tomorrow it may be different.
- kodyo 4y ago
- kube-system 4y agoI’m sure Ukraine doesn’t feel like it’s fighting a puppet dance. Just because the US has made bad decisions before doesn’t mean that it’s doing a bad thing now, nor does it means that there’s anything wrong with incentives being aligned. All international relations are based on aligned incentives of self interest, not just those of the US.
- kodyo 4y ago
- kube-system 4y agoIt’s not 2014 anymore. If you think that a coup is wrong, then what do you think about a total annexation?
- kodyo 4y agoThat both are abhorrent but we wouldn’t be where we are today if NATO hadn’t been extending its membership eastwards since the end of the cold war and running arms deals with countries on Russia’s border.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- _-david-_ 4y agoGetting fired for almost starting WW3 due to a fake story you wrote seems like a pretty light punishment. Maybe the AP will do a better job fact checking in the future before causing a war.
- duxup 4y agoI doubt anyone at the Pentagon is launching missiles after reading an AP story.
- encryptluks2 4y agoYet Bush gets a free pass for actually starting a war on false information.
- roywiggins 4y agoEven if it had been a Russian missile it would not have caused a wider war. The Soviets shot down a whole airliner in 1983 and didn't cause one.
- kube-system 4y agoMaybe that’s why the Russians got away with the same thing again in 2014.
- tomjakubowski 4y agoIf nuclear powers decided to launch missiles based only on random newspaper articles we'd all be long dead.
- Proven 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- userbinator 4y agosubsequent reporting showed that the missiles were Russian-made and most likely fired by Ukraine in defense against a Russian attack They were fired by Ukraine towards Poland in defense?
- vpribish 4y agodude. they are anti-air missiles, pretty easy to understand they were flying west chasing a target
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- anikan_vader 4y agoThey were anti-air missile(s) originating from an S-300 fired at Russian aerial threats (likely cruise missiles or Iranian drones).
- LinuxBender 4y agoCould have been chasing missiles, though this is improbable given all reports on the S300's have concluded 100% effectiveness. Another potential could be someone in Ukraine being overzealous and trying to trigger a false-flag to force NATO into the action. Ukraine's president has been making continuous efforts to pull NATO into their war and may be getting desperate especially given they are going into deep winter and both sides will have to make significant strategic changes. It would not be the first time a major war started from a false flag. Thankfully either way cooler heads prevailed this time.
- somenameforme 4y agoIt's amazing how quickly fake news is able to spread through "credible" news sources, all without even the slightest bit of real verification. I don't know if its scary or comforting to consider that if the political establishment wanted WW3, they could have it had it right there. The same intelligence agencies that convinced the world Iraq had WMD could have simply agreed with the story/Zelensky/et al, declare anybody debating it to be a "conspiracy theorist promoting Russian misinformation/propaganda", invoke article 5, and away we go.
- duxup 4y agoPersonally I think of incorrect news without someone trying to lie or distort the news as just a mistake. As far as I know that was the case here, and bound to happen a great deal. I think of fake news as something else.
- kodyo 4y agoShitty reporting that supports your intelligence agency's agenda is pretty straight-forward fake news.
- ajross 4y agoWhat agenda? The state department and white house straight up denied this story when it ran!
- kodyo 4y ago
- andrewflnr 4y agoI'm pretty sure that's just so they don't feel like they have to go all Article 5 on Ukraine. That would be really awkward, going to war against a country you were donating arms to yesterday, right? So sure, there's an agenda, but it seems like a morally defensible one, and not one supported by lies (at least not where it intersects with US interests).
- robswc 4y agoSeems wild how it seems lately there's no room for gray, only black and white. I got torn apart for saying the "ghost of Kyiv" wasn't real, followed by the "most level headed take" of a reply that went something like "hey, even if its fake, people need something to believe in right now so saying this stuff only helps Russia." I am of course 100% against what Russia is doing. I just feel like we should all be very aware of what is real and what is fake. Otherwise we can't make good judgments. I saw people calling for WWIII because of the missile incident. Just blows my mind. I truly think that some people feel so insulated from the effects they view it as some "event" that just takes place in a distant land where if you cheer loud enough and show enough support the "good guys will win" after a few months. The world doesn't need more destabilization. Of course, Russia can't keep killing people either... but at the end of the day, this isn't and shouldn't be solved by online commentators. I really wish Putin would throw in the towel at this point... its barbaric, depressing and embarrassing.
- duxup 4y agoWhat I find interesting is among a few sites where you see amateurs talking about combat footage and news of that war, everyone is well aware how little they know. It’s everyone else who seems to draw grand conclusions.
- andrewflnr 4y agoIt's not really about missing black and white. I'm inclined to say it's the opposite. Too many people have gotten used to bending or ignoring the truth in favor of their ideology (whoever you're thinking of: not just them). In their minds this seems to be a matter of defending some "higher truth", or rather keeping people from pesky details that might prevent them from coming to the "right" conclusion, but they forget reality is made of pesky details. Any ideology that drifts from reality is doomed to not only fail, but probably cause a lot of suffering on the way. Truth matters, all of it. Anyway, in a war these pesky details usually blur the nice black/white, us/them narrative that gets people motivated to fight. I mostly agree with your post, just wanted to say my piece on that.
- throwawaymedia 4y agoWhen Ukraine hits Poland (even by mistake), people take step back and blame Russia, because Ukraine wouldn't have had to use an anti-missile system if there was no Russian missile in the first place. Fair enough. Now, why don't people use the same analogy for Russia starting that war? Let's take a step back and ask a basic question - who escalated this all? Who benefits from this war? Who pours money there? Why is nobody asking these questions?
- piva00 4y ago> Now, why don't people use the same analogy for Russia starting that war? Because a war of invasion and annexation is something we've learned since WW2 that won't ever be tolerated in Europe again, history has shown why. > Let's take a step back and ask a basic question - who escalated this all? Pretty easy: Putin and Russia. First 2008, then 2014 and a full-scale invasion in 2022. Russia chose to invade a neighbouring country in 2008 (Georgia, hope you remember it), Russia decided to escalate that and annex Crimea in 2014. Russia shadow-invaded Ukraine in 2014 (or have you forgotten all the military personnel wearing Russian gear that went "on vacation" to Donbass and Crimea?). Russia downed a civilian airplane in 2014. Or isn't any of that escalation? > Who benefits from this war? Very good question, if the war ended in 3 days as it was Putin's fantasy who would have benefited from this war? As it didn't end in 3 days, no one is really benefiting from this except the military industry in multiple countries, mostly in Europe, which didn't have to arm themselves for decades of relative peace. > Who pours money there? All the Western countries are pouring money in there, to fend off an invasion, to keep the sovereignty of a state, a thing that wasn't really required to be taken care of since the end of WW2. > Why is nobody asking these questions? Because they are fucking dumb questions posed by Russian propaganda, that's why.
- throwawaymedia 4y agoOk, smarty. Why was there a conflict in Georgia? What were the events that led to it? > Russia decided to escalate that and annex Crimea in 2014 Putin CLEARLY said that he will annex Crimea if X. What is that X?
- HDThoreaun 4y ago
- throwawaymedia 4y agoI'm not a Russian shill. I pay my taxes in the US, and, apparently, my actions sponsor the war.
- brookst 4y agoYour comment history is 80% unquestioning pro-Russian goose stepping, and 20% mathematically nonsensical anti-vaxx nonsense.
- moistly 4y agoThe root problem is that there is a troubled subset of our population who delight in smearing shit on the walls. We’ve all seen it in real life public toilets, in that literal fashion, but it also comes in the form of ratfucking, like Stone, and in QAnon-style promotion of crazy conspiracy theories, and in many variations in-between. They engage in acts of destruction against the public good; they are destroyers of peace, of reason, of society, and of democracy. Some are legit mentally ill, but other are very savvy and are doing it with deliberation. Social media has broadened their reach and increased the volume of their smear.
- foundajob 4y agoIt sounds like you're saying that anybody who diverges from your status quo opinions is some sort of mental terrorist. Excuse me, "stochastic terrorist."
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- brookst 4y agoThanks for illustrating both the problem and the reductionist rhetoric so popular by those invested in making things worse. I imagine there are people out there who are fooled by the lazy syllogism "you're condemning those who make up lies for personal gain and nihilism / people who make up these lies are contradicting status quo opinions / therefore you are condemning anyone who says anything contrary to the status quo". But to most of us that's so obviously fallacious that it feels dirty to even engage with. Bring me evidence of democrats drinking infant blood in the basement of a pizza parlor and we'll talk. But don't tell me that I must accept such things because they are contrary to what every reasonable person believes. And don't tell me that I have to either accept or reject every contrarian opinion as a single proposition rather than considering each one individually.
- aaron695 4y ago