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Let's take one point at a time: > we DO KNOW that Bush was the biggest force behind the push to keep expanding NATO to Russia’s border and get Ukraine and Geor

by mopsi 4y ago

Let's take one point at a time: > we DO KNOW that Bush was the biggest force behind the push to keep expanding NATO to Russia’s border and get Ukraine and Georgia in This is simply not true. The initiative (or lack of) has always come from Eastern Europe and that has been the main factor that determined which countries ended up in NATO and which ones did not. Nobody has been dragged into NATO "kicking and screaming", as you put it. Your whole narrative falls apart once you admit this simple fact.

EGreg 4y ago
It’s not a fact at all. It is an extremely biased oversimplification and massive equivocation. “Eastern Europe” is very broad, consisting of many countries. Within a country there are many viewpoints. Anyone can always be found to say “the initiative came” from them, whether it’s Communists in Cuba / Nicaragua / Vietnam whatever, or whether it’s literal fascists like Pinochet’s revolution in Chile, or the Houthi rebels in Yemen, or even the mujahideen in Afghanistan — where we similarly came to “help Afghanistan” in a proxy war that killed 2 million people over there! We did it all for the express purpose of “making the Soviets bleed for as long and as hard as possible” and “creating a Vietnam for them”, not out of any great love for Afghans! The way proxy wars start, in fact, is that an outside actor emboldens one group in a country that foments a revolution, while another outside actor emboldens another group in the country that launches a counter-revolution. Whether it’s Maidan vs Anti-Maidan, or Houthis vs Saudi Loyalists, or even the Red Army vs the White Army in Russia, we know by now how a revolution can lead to destabilization and a destructive proxy war. I have SHOWN you that the actual POPULATION of Ukraine was majority against NATO, for the very reasons given by everyone else — they didn’t want war with Russia and they chose economic and military ties with Russia over NATO. So why was Ukraine’s president working with NATO to get Ukraine into NATO? So now you switched it to “Eastern Europe”. Wow, quite a big switch there, and certainly some other countries, like Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania could be said to have had majorities who wanted to join NATO. In fact, that is what the 2001 article I linked to was about. It literally says: Mr. Bush declared that he wanted NATO to expand up to Russia's border Russia allowed this with no wars happening. But that was not enough. Soon afterwards it to be Ukraine and Georgia in NATO. It takes a special bias to look at a Reuters headline like “Bush VOWS to PRESS for Ukraine, Georgia in NATO” together with polls at the same time showing a solid majority of Ukrainians against it, and somehow conclude that Bush wasn’t pushing for Ukraine to be in NATO: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nato-ukraine-bush-idUSL0141706220080401 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nato-ukraine-bush-idUSL01... Everyone in Russia made it clear that this is an absolute red line, not just Putin. They did this for years, in every international forum. Every policy expert WARNED BUSH that this would be the consequence. To say it Russia’s reaction is “unprovoked” is just a total lie. The decision makers in the US simply ignored every single warning, and even now keep telling tons of people in their own government and other institutions to shut up and stop even so much as asking for a peace process. The reason is obvious: this is a push to hopefully surround Russia with members of a hostile alliance once and for all. Because otherwise Russia would be stronger with allies, and we’d rather their own beighbors fight them over there than we have to contend with a significant power with its own alliance on the global stage.
- mopsi 4y ago
  > I have SHOWN you that the actual POPULATION of Ukraine was majority against NATO, for the very reasons given by everyone else — they didn’t want war with Russia and they chose economic and military ties with Russia over NATO. So why was Ukraine’s president working with NATO to get Ukraine into NATO? Because he thought it was the best way forward. The population didn't think so, so they elected another president who stopped further integration into NATO and ultimately Ukraine didn't end up joining. This is how politics, governance and elections work. As I've said, whether countries joined NATO or not was up to them. The door was open, but nobody was dragging them in by force as you wrote. That's a lie.
EGreg 4y ago
Subverting their democracies and regime-changing their leadership to flip them against Russia is dragging them. If they can't do it by hook, they'll do it by crook. In 2021 they also tried to do the same in Belarus and Kazakhstan, and I'm sure the same narrative would be used: "a silent majority wanted it, they were just afraid to say it, we helped liberate them". Back in 2008 we see this: NATO leaders promised Ukraine and Georgia on Thursday they would one day join the Western defence alliance after rebuffing U.S. demands to put the former Soviet republics on an immediate path to membership. https://www.reuters.com/article/idINIndia-32818020080403 https://www.reuters.com/article/idINIndia-32818020080403 Some NATO leaders had to rebuff US demands to bring Ukraine and Georgia into NATO. Can you admit that Bush and the US were pressing for Ukraine and Georgia to join NATO at a time when solid majorities of their actual people were against it? Why? I have told you the reason: they wanted to flip Russia's allies to instead join a hostile military alliance, and eventually host weapons there aimed at Russia. They once had nuclear missiles, which NYTimes says were "all aimed at the United States". To quote them in 1994: Ukraine, politically and economically unstable since it became an independent state after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, has 176 intercontinental missiles armed with some 1,240 nuclear warheads--all aimed at the United States. It also has 592 nuclear warheads aboard bombers, which would be covered by the agreement. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-01-11-mn-10675-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-01-11-mn-10675-... My explanation of US motivations is simple and clear, and makes sense. You keep ignoring it, and talking about how "anyone is free to do what they want." US straight up helped foment a revolution in 2014, sending very top people to encourage protestors to cut ties with Russia, and they ended up partnering with the far-right to overthrow their government: The Guardian in 2013: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93eyhO8VTdg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93eyhO8VTdg BBC in 2014: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SBo0akeDMY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SBo0akeDMY BBC in 2015: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hE6b4ao8gAQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hE6b4ao8gAQ Look, I think that Russia is encouraging the same thing in Moldova and Slovakia at this very moment. I don't doubt that CIA in Ukraine, and FSB in Moldova, are always actively trying to regime-change those countries to be more favorable. You speak nothing about this. You act like it's off-limits and dishonest to even put forward basic explanations for why "great powers" do what they do. But we have seen it in proxy wars for centuries. We know how it goes. What makes this time any different? US failed in 2008 Ukraine, they failed in 2008 Georgia (because of Russian invasion), they succeeded in Ukraine 2014, then both Russia and NATO financed and perpetuated a proxy war in Ukraine since 2014. Russia's invasion isn't "unprovoked", it is the result of 8 years of warnings and peace agreements (Minsk II) that were never implemented, and the CIA was already training an insurgency in Ukraine, training neo-nazi paramilitaries, just as Russians had been doing in Donetsk paramilitaries, for years: https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-secret-cia-training-program-in-ukraine-helped-kyiv-prepare-for-russian-invasion-090052743.html https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-secret-cia-training-program... https://news.yahoo.com/cia-trained-ukrainian-paramilitaries-may-take-central-role-if-russia-invades-185258008.html https://news.yahoo.com/cia-trained-ukrainian-paramilitaries-... https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-02-25/ukraine-cia-insurgents-russia-invasion https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-02-25/ukraine-cia... https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2018-07-09/ty-article/rights-groups-demand-israel-stop-arming-neo-nazis-in-the-ukraine/0000017f-e080-d7b2-a77f-e3870e1c0000 https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2018-07-09/ty-article/ri... Did I mention NATO in 2009-2011 also coordinated the world's largest disarmament project, by DISARMING UKRAINE OF DEFENSIVE WEAPONS, and then presenting themselves as a solution? They admit it right on their own website, but they spin it as "well, we didn't want the aging Ukrainian weapons to fall into the wrong hands." NONE of this looks like your (perhaps unintentionally) dishonest characterization of "democracy as usual" in these countries. It's not the majority of civilians choosing to arm far-right militia, nor overthrow their government, nor get pumped full of NATO weaponry. It shouldn't be surprising, since Ukraine was not very democratic and quite corrupt. (The same can be said for Russia.)

by mopsi 4y ago

EGreg 4y ago

It’s not a fact at all. It is an extremely biased oversimplification and massive equivocation. “Eastern Europe” is very broad, consisting of many countries. Within a country there are many viewpoints. Anyone can always be found to say “the initiative came” from them, whether it’s Communists in Cuba / Nicaragua / Vietnam whatever, or whether it’s literal fascists like Pinochet’s revolution in Chile, or the Houthi rebels in Yemen, or even the mujahideen in Afghanistan — where we similarly came to “help Afghanistan” in a proxy war that killed 2 million people over there! We did it all for the express purpose of “making the Soviets bleed for as long and as hard as possible” and “creating a Vietnam for them”, not out of any great love for Afghans! The way proxy wars start, in fact, is that an outside actor emboldens one group in a country that foments a revolution, while another outside actor emboldens another group in the country that launches a counter-revolution. Whether it’s Maidan vs Anti-Maidan, or Houthis vs Saudi Loyalists, or even the Red Army vs the White Army in Russia, we know by now how a revolution can lead to destabilization and a destructive proxy war. I have SHOWN you that the actual POPULATION of Ukraine was majority against NATO, for the very reasons given by everyone else — they didn’t want war with Russia and they chose economic and military ties with Russia over NATO. So why was Ukraine’s president working with NATO to get Ukraine into NATO? So now you switched it to “Eastern Europe”. Wow, quite a big switch there, and certainly some other countries, like Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania could be said to have had majorities who wanted to join NATO. In fact, that is what the 2001 article I linked to was about. It literally says: Mr. Bush declared that he wanted NATO to expand up to Russia's border Russia allowed this with no wars happening. But that was not enough. Soon afterwards it to be Ukraine and Georgia in NATO. It takes a special bias to look at a Reuters headline like “Bush VOWS to PRESS for Ukraine, Georgia in NATO” together with polls at the same time showing a solid majority of Ukrainians against it, and somehow conclude that Bush wasn’t pushing for Ukraine to be in NATO: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nato-ukraine-bush-idUSL0141706220080401 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nato-ukraine-bush-idUSL01... Everyone in Russia made it clear that this is an absolute red line, not just Putin. They did this for years, in every international forum. Every policy expert WARNED BUSH that this would be the consequence. To say it Russia’s reaction is “unprovoked” is just a total lie. The decision makers in the US simply ignored every single warning, and even now keep telling tons of people in their own government and other institutions to shut up and stop even so much as asking for a peace process. The reason is obvious: this is a push to hopefully surround Russia with members of a hostile alliance once and for all. Because otherwise Russia would be stronger with allies, and we’d rather their own beighbors fight them over there than we have to contend with a significant power with its own alliance on the global stage.

mopsi 4y ago
> I have SHOWN you that the actual POPULATION of Ukraine was majority against NATO, for the very reasons given by everyone else — they didn’t want war with Russia and they chose economic and military ties with Russia over NATO. So why was Ukraine’s president working with NATO to get Ukraine into NATO? Because he thought it was the best way forward. The population didn't think so, so they elected another president who stopped further integration into NATO and ultimately Ukraine didn't end up joining. This is how politics, governance and elections work. As I've said, whether countries joined NATO or not was up to them. The door was open, but nobody was dragging them in by force as you wrote. That's a lie.

EGreg 4y ago

Subverting their democracies and regime-changing their leadership to flip them against Russia is dragging them. If they can't do it by hook, they'll do it by crook. In 2021 they also tried to do the same in Belarus and Kazakhstan, and I'm sure the same narrative would be used: "a silent majority wanted it, they were just afraid to say it, we helped liberate them". Back in 2008 we see this: NATO leaders promised Ukraine and Georgia on Thursday they would one day join the Western defence alliance after rebuffing U.S. demands to put the former Soviet republics on an immediate path to membership. https://www.reuters.com/article/idINIndia-32818020080403 https://www.reuters.com/article/idINIndia-32818020080403 Some NATO leaders had to rebuff US demands to bring Ukraine and Georgia into NATO. Can you admit that Bush and the US were pressing for Ukraine and Georgia to join NATO at a time when solid majorities of their actual people were against it? Why? I have told you the reason: they wanted to flip Russia's allies to instead join a hostile military alliance, and eventually host weapons there aimed at Russia. They once had nuclear missiles, which NYTimes says were "all aimed at the United States". To quote them in 1994: Ukraine, politically and economically unstable since it became an independent state after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, has 176 intercontinental missiles armed with some 1,240 nuclear warheads--all aimed at the United States. It also has 592 nuclear warheads aboard bombers, which would be covered by the agreement. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-01-11-mn-10675-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-01-11-mn-10675-... My explanation of US motivations is simple and clear, and makes sense. You keep ignoring it, and talking about how "anyone is free to do what they want." US straight up helped foment a revolution in 2014, sending very top people to encourage protestors to cut ties with Russia, and they ended up partnering with the far-right to overthrow their government: The Guardian in 2013: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93eyhO8VTdg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93eyhO8VTdg BBC in 2014: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SBo0akeDMY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SBo0akeDMY BBC in 2015: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hE6b4ao8gAQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hE6b4ao8gAQ Look, I think that Russia is encouraging the same thing in Moldova and Slovakia at this very moment. I don't doubt that CIA in Ukraine, and FSB in Moldova, are always actively trying to regime-change those countries to be more favorable. You speak nothing about this. You act like it's off-limits and dishonest to even put forward basic explanations for why "great powers" do what they do. But we have seen it in proxy wars for centuries. We know how it goes. What makes this time any different? US failed in 2008 Ukraine, they failed in 2008 Georgia (because of Russian invasion), they succeeded in Ukraine 2014, then both Russia and NATO financed and perpetuated a proxy war in Ukraine since 2014. Russia's invasion isn't "unprovoked", it is the result of 8 years of warnings and peace agreements (Minsk II) that were never implemented, and the CIA was already training an insurgency in Ukraine, training neo-nazi paramilitaries, just as Russians had been doing in Donetsk paramilitaries, for years: https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-secret-cia-training-program-in-ukraine-helped-kyiv-prepare-for-russian-invasion-090052743.html https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-secret-cia-training-program... https://news.yahoo.com/cia-trained-ukrainian-paramilitaries-may-take-central-role-if-russia-invades-185258008.html https://news.yahoo.com/cia-trained-ukrainian-paramilitaries-... https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-02-25/ukraine-cia-insurgents-russia-invasion https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-02-25/ukraine-cia... https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2018-07-09/ty-article/rights-groups-demand-israel-stop-arming-neo-nazis-in-the-ukraine/0000017f-e080-d7b2-a77f-e3870e1c0000 https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2018-07-09/ty-article/ri... Did I mention NATO in 2009-2011 also coordinated the world's largest disarmament project, by DISARMING UKRAINE OF DEFENSIVE WEAPONS, and then presenting themselves as a solution? They admit it right on their own website, but they spin it as "well, we didn't want the aging Ukrainian weapons to fall into the wrong hands." NONE of this looks like your (perhaps unintentionally) dishonest characterization of "democracy as usual" in these countries. It's not the majority of civilians choosing to arm far-right militia, nor overthrow their government, nor get pumped full of NATO weaponry. It shouldn't be surprising, since Ukraine was not very democratic and quite corrupt. (The same can be said for Russia.)