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Your understanding supports this claim. If you go outside the mainstream media and this outlet, you might hear that the US is the only real empire with ~800 mil

Your understanding supports this claim. If you go outside the mainstream media and this outlet, you might hear that the US is the only real empire with ~800 military bases around the world and their NATO that has expanded right up to Russia's borders. The best way to support the victims of Ukraine is to help them not die and suffer further by supporting peace talks, cease fires, and détente instead of sending them weapons that Russia will destroy along with them. It may be too late for Ukraine now. MSM has done its job already. We can only hope this does not go nuclear.

eynsham 3y ago
Personally I think it's up to the Ukrainians to decide whether they want to die fighting Russians, and I'm happy for my taxes to go to them if they want to keep going. The notion that the US is the only empire in the morally salient sense of the word is so laughably US-centric that only Western contrarians unironically believe it.
dragonwriter 3y ago
> NATO that has expanded right up to Russia's borders. NATO was formed on Russia's borders, it didn’t need to expand to reach them. And countries near you joining a regional security arrangement isn’t a casus belli, most especially not against completely different countries that you have already succeeded in getting the alliance not to admit, thereby also quelling the country’s interest in joining the alliance. I know Russian propagandists like to point to the renewed interest in NATO membership Ukraine developed in 2014 for the war, the problem with that is that that interest (aside from not justifying the war in any case) was a direct result of Russia launching the war of aggression.
- kornhole 3y ago
  Do not confuse Russia with the Soviet Union. When NATO formed, it's border was the partition of Germany and below. Now it includes many countries that were formally part of the Soviet Union. The US made assurances that NATO would not expand eastward. Ask Jeffrey Sachs who was there when those agreements were made. https://www.commondreams.org/author/jeffrey-d-sachs https://www.commondreams.org/author/jeffrey-d-sachs
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    > Do not confuse Russia with the Soviet Union Russia was a constituent Republic of the Soviet Union and NATO was on the border of Russia, as well as the Soviet Union, when it was formed. > The US made assurances that NATO would not expand eastward Informal assurances of current intent given to the Soviet Union around the time of German reunification and never reduced to a treaty or even a formal executive agreement are not binding commitments with unlimited time horizons inheritable by successor states. (And, anyhow, Russia's active pursuit of NATO membership, including under Putin until he got upset that he couldn't bypass the readiness requirements and be directly admitted ahead of others, would have been a clear repudiation of it if it did still have some applicability.)
    - int_19h 3y ago
      Not that it makes a big difference, but for accuracy's sake: the only NATO country that had a land border with USSR proper was Turkey, which joined in 1952, three years after NATO was formed.
      - dragonwriter 3y ago
        > Not that it makes a big difference, but for accuracy's sake: the only NATO country that had a land border with USSR proper was Turkey, which joined in 1952, three years after NATO was formed. Norway is a founding member with a land border, and borders don't just happen on land; the US also is territorially adjacent to Russia.
        int_19h 3y ago
        You're right; I didn't even think of Norway because of how insignificant and remote that stretch of border is, but yeah, it's still technically land border. Either way I don't think it matters. The point ultimately is that NATO expansion is not some kind of Western imperialist creep - neighbors of Russia rushed to join NATO as soon as they could because they wanted security based on their own past experience. It was never a threat to Russia.
  - 3y ago
worik 3y ago
> NATO that has expanded right up to Russia's borders. Does that make slaughtering up to 100,000 young men, and many civilians who get in the way, justified? Russia's invasion of Ukraine is in every way just as bad as USA's invasion of Iraq. Both are horrific crimes, which should see the executives of the Russia, and the USA, hang. If anybody should hang, Bush (and Blair?) up there with Putin. Unsure what to do with Obama. His use of remote control killing robots should put him up there on the gallows. Actually I would put the three of them (and Blair) in goal for life - I do not approve of killing for any reason. Unlike the rulers of the USA and Russia
lisasays 3y ago
The best way to support the victims of Ukraine is to help them not die and suffer further In other words - your view is that the Ukrainians are incapable of deciding on their own whether to keep fighting their perfectly well-meaning Russian liberators, or not.

eynsham 3y ago

Personally I think it's up to the Ukrainians to decide whether they want to die fighting Russians, and I'm happy for my taxes to go to them if they want to keep going. The notion that the US is the only empire in the morally salient sense of the word is so laughably US-centric that only Western contrarians unironically believe it.

dragonwriter 3y ago

> NATO that has expanded right up to Russia's borders. NATO was formed on Russia's borders, it didn’t need to expand to reach them. And countries near you joining a regional security arrangement isn’t a casus belli, most especially not against completely different countries that you have already succeeded in getting the alliance not to admit, thereby also quelling the country’s interest in joining the alliance. I know Russian propagandists like to point to the renewed interest in NATO membership Ukraine developed in 2014 for the war, the problem with that is that that interest (aside from not justifying the war in any case) was a direct result of Russia launching the war of aggression.

kornhole 3y ago
Do not confuse Russia with the Soviet Union. When NATO formed, it's border was the partition of Germany and below. Now it includes many countries that were formally part of the Soviet Union. The US made assurances that NATO would not expand eastward. Ask Jeffrey Sachs who was there when those agreements were made. https://www.commondreams.org/author/jeffrey-d-sachs https://www.commondreams.org/author/jeffrey-d-sachs
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > Do not confuse Russia with the Soviet Union Russia was a constituent Republic of the Soviet Union and NATO was on the border of Russia, as well as the Soviet Union, when it was formed. > The US made assurances that NATO would not expand eastward Informal assurances of current intent given to the Soviet Union around the time of German reunification and never reduced to a treaty or even a formal executive agreement are not binding commitments with unlimited time horizons inheritable by successor states. (And, anyhow, Russia's active pursuit of NATO membership, including under Putin until he got upset that he couldn't bypass the readiness requirements and be directly admitted ahead of others, would have been a clear repudiation of it if it did still have some applicability.)
  - int_19h 3y ago
    Not that it makes a big difference, but for accuracy's sake: the only NATO country that had a land border with USSR proper was Turkey, which joined in 1952, three years after NATO was formed.
    - dragonwriter 3y ago
      > Not that it makes a big difference, but for accuracy's sake: the only NATO country that had a land border with USSR proper was Turkey, which joined in 1952, three years after NATO was formed. Norway is a founding member with a land border, and borders don't just happen on land; the US also is territorially adjacent to Russia.
      - int_19h 3y ago
        You're right; I didn't even think of Norway because of how insignificant and remote that stretch of border is, but yeah, it's still technically land border. Either way I don't think it matters. The point ultimately is that NATO expansion is not some kind of Western imperialist creep - neighbors of Russia rushed to join NATO as soon as they could because they wanted security based on their own past experience. It was never a threat to Russia.
- 3y ago

worik 3y ago

> NATO that has expanded right up to Russia's borders. Does that make slaughtering up to 100,000 young men, and many civilians who get in the way, justified? Russia's invasion of Ukraine is in every way just as bad as USA's invasion of Iraq. Both are horrific crimes, which should see the executives of the Russia, and the USA, hang. If anybody should hang, Bush (and Blair?) up there with Putin. Unsure what to do with Obama. His use of remote control killing robots should put him up there on the gallows. Actually I would put the three of them (and Blair) in goal for life - I do not approve of killing for any reason. Unlike the rulers of the USA and Russia

lisasays 3y ago

The best way to support the victims of Ukraine is to help them not die and suffer further In other words - your view is that the Ukrainians are incapable of deciding on their own whether to keep fighting their perfectly well-meaning Russian liberators, or not.