4 ms·

> 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?

• EGreg 4y ago
  I never said “big scary America is preyinf upon poor little Russia”. I said USSR, USA, and China have played these games for years and destroyed countries in proxy wars. But let’s just use your one-sided rhetoric, and see how ridiculous it is. Sure, you’ve convinced me! Big Bad Russia has done things much worse than China and USA have ever done to their neighbors. Their neighbors all want to join an alliance against Russia, unlike all the neighbors of great and benevolent USA and China. Of course, USA cares deeply about Ukraine’s safety from Russia since 1994, which is why it worked to make sure Ukraine would give up its nukes. USA and George W Bush cared deeply about Ukraine’s security which is why they pushed NATO to accept the Ukrainian president’s bid to join NATO, even when Ukraine’s own population was against it. They didn’t know what was for their own good. That’s how democracy works, after all. After Yanukovich was elected and ended this, NATO cared so deeply about Ukraine’s remaining defensive weapons ending up in the wrong hands, that they undertook the largest disarmament program in the world, to rid it of these weapons. In 2013, USA felt really bad about Ukraine’s economy. They didn’t want Ukraine to have to keep doing business with a neighbor like Russia, who have done bad things like Holodomor and suppressing the Ukrainian language for hundreds of years. So John McCain and other top people went to Ukraine, to help liberate it from the Russian sphere of influence. This was purely out of concern for the Ukrainian people, especially the ones in the West of Ukraine who had voted 30-37% for the far-right Svoboda party. After all, they better some far-right Russophobic ideologies than the fifth column of Russophiles in the east. Ukraine’s destiny lies in Europe! It is, after all, to improve Ukraine’s own democracy that USA fomented a revolution that overthrew its corrupt, sitting president, who was simply a stooge of Mr Putin. The far-right groups that helped make this happen were merely incidental to what was effectively a people’s uprising — totally different than, say, January 6th in USA. In fact, they were the true patriots, who had Ukraine’s best interests at heart unlike the anti-Maidan protestors, who were astroturfed by Russia. Russia’s house of cards fell apart. With its stooge gone, it became clear that the vast majority of Ukrainians never really wanted ties with Russia, direct flights with Russia, (not even to visit their 11 million relatives there) to do business with Russian clients, nor even to let people in the Donbas keep speaking Russian in their schools. The USA had finally liberated Ukrainians from having to pretend they liked anything Russian… and Russia should just allow Ukraine to join NATO and stop being such a bully. But Russia didn’t back down. They armed insurgents in the Donbas because Putin wanted to take over the entire Ukraine and restore the Soviet Union. It was his unspoken dream, because he never says what he really thinks. Thankfully, NATO kept arming the true government of Ukraine, as well as the true patriots (far right paramilitary) who could defend the motherland from the country which had long abused them, and where they had many relatives — and after years of training eventually got the brave Ukrainians to beat the second best army in Ukraine: the Russians, who they always knew were so weak they’d never be able to overrun the country in a few days. It’s not like the CIA planned a destructive Afghanistan-style guerilla war to tear the country apart as long as it can “make the Russians bleed for as long and as hard as possible.” The Russians were know to be weak, and have been losing since 2022, or maybe since 2014. They’ve run out of ammunition and tanks long ago, and are using shovels. (Btw I am not even making any of the above up… you can’t make this up, it is literally what they say: https://www.thedefensepost.com/2023/03/08/russia-ammunition-shovels-intel/amp/ https://www.thedefensepost.com/2023/03/08/russia-ammunition-...) Of course, this is just as preposterous as believing that USA has the best interests of Afghans in mind when the CIA funded the Mujahideen, and waves of Afghan Arabs to tear apart the country. We KNOW that in nearly every other case since Laos, the CIA played a role in fomenting these conflicts in order to weaken their rivals (Russia, China, etc) and not out of a concern for the country. Sometimes they say the quiet part out loud and you are so willing to believe the propaganda that you ignore it: https://m.facebook.com/IndianMilitaryUpdate/videos/united-states-aids-ukraine-and-her-people-so-that-we-can-fight-russia-over-there/690898798759583/ https://m.facebook.com/IndianMilitaryUpdate/videos/united-st... Look, even if they HAD deep concern for Ukrainians, sending them weapons only makes them LESS safe. Did gulf countries and Iran sending weapons to Gaza ever make the PEOPLE of Gaza safer? The Hamas top leaders weren’t even in Gaza during some of the heaviest bombings — but the civilians were. It’s obscene to volunteer OTHER people to perish in large numbers to achieve some imperialist geopolitical ambitions, if you aren’t actually willing to go and sit under bombs with your family yourself, but force others to! That’s my view.
  • mopsi 4y ago
    See? You have nothing but hyperbole to offer. Entry of Eastern Europe into NATO is now so far in the past that we have a good amount of memoirs and personal recollections in addition to all sorts of documented evidence like laws, policy papers, studies and assessments available from that time. Most of the people who were directly involved are still alive too. But the best you can offer to "prove" that countries were forced into NATO is a small number newspaper snippets blatantly taken out of context. The rest of your long posts is pure rhethorics without any factual substance. You have made up an alternative reality, which is easy to do if you're on the other side of the globe and have no personal connection whatsoever with those events. But I lived through them and I remember everything very well. I remember the discussions about NATO membership, from the earliest ideas to fully formulated policies, as well as early doubts whether we have any hope of attaining that goal. I remember the stances different parties held in my country. I voted for parties that supported joining NATO, as most people did, and those parties got elected into the government and lead the very long and demanding accession talks that were ultimately fruitful. To say that we were dragged into NATO "kicking and screaming" is plain wrong without any wiggle room. The memory of atrocities committed against us by Russians in the 20th century, as well as the Russian savagery in Chechen wars in 1990s and 2000s (that reminded us that nothing had changed) were top reasons why joining NATO had near-universal support. And the current war has only cemented that support. NATO is the reason why Russians can't bomb our cities, can't rape our women, can't kidnap our children, can't take away our land like they are doing in Ukraine. The combined strength is too big for Russia to challenge. Even countries like Finland and Sweden that maintained large armies and neutrality for more than 200 years have re-evaluated their foreign policy and joined NATO to deepen mutual cooperation.
    • EGreg 4y ago
      Well, now we see each other’s bias. I am in the USA and see what my country does all over the world and see our propaganda. You are in a Baltic country and were actually a part of the movement to join NATO. Each of us has biases. Yours is that you didn’t really experience much the opinions of 40% of Russian speakers in your country who are also citizens. If you were in Western Ukraine, you’d also be very frustrated with Eastern Ukrainians who like Russia despite all the horrors of past decades. Not being in USA or Turkey or China, you are unaware of similar things done by them to their neighbors. Many Christian neighbors of Turkey remember genocides and genocidal rapes for instance. In regard to USA, neighbors remember stuff like this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_occupation_of_Haiti https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_occupation_of_... However, there are still many in the country that want to maintain ties with the imperialidt country despite this, who have family in that country, etc. In fact, they are breathing a sigh of relief that things got better and do not want to join a hostile alliance for fear that their relations with their neighbor will deteriorate badly and they’ll get invaded again. Cuba was in fact invaded, for instance (bay of pigs invasion) and then called for USSR to help. This led to an escalation and standoff and it is GOOD that it got deescalated. That is what I keep saying. The factors you bring up are neither exhaustive nor determinative. They are just that — factors among other factors. Your experience is certainly valuable but it is the experience of many nationalist groups in the world, whether they have their own state or are aspiring to get one (Kurds in Iraq, for instance, or Catalonians). The outcome of NATO expansion was predicted by tons of experts and they were right. Regardless of how much you keep repeating a one sided narrative, Russia’s invasion was not “unprovoked”. I have tried to address every point of yours directly and show you the larger picture, whereas you’ve IGNORED almost every single one of my points in my posts. You’re welcome to reply to the post right above the one I’m replying to, point by point for once, without again dodging.