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It was the four decades that General Smedley Butler spent fighting wars of aggression on behalf of the United States that led him to write "War is a Racket". A

It was the four decades that General Smedley Butler spent fighting wars of aggression on behalf of the United States that led him to write "War is a Racket". At no point in the history of the United States were we "pacifists" - despite the revisionist history of those who choose to ignore our long, bloody history throughout Central and South America before we embarked on our global imperial crusade in 1917. >There would be no Holocaust and millions of lives would be saved if people attacked nazi germany preventively in 1935 as proposed by Piłsudski. There would have been no Holocaust and no Nazi Germany if Woodrow Wilson didn't plunge the United States into the war between crumbling European empires in 1917, and had instead kept the United States out of the war (a message he campaigned on) and forced them to come to an equitable and lasting peace on their own terms. As Ferdinand Foch (The Supreme Allied Commander during WW1) said after Versailles, "This is not a peace, it is an armistice for 20 years". Instead, our interference allowing England and France to put their boot on the throat of Germany, destroying them economically and leading directly to the rise of Hitler and the Nazis. >If Ukraine was accepted into NATO in 2008 as Eastern European countries and USA proposed - there would be no 2014 invasion of Crimea and Donbas and 2022 invasion of whole Ukraine. If NATO didn't insist on expanding after the fall of the Soviet Union (as promised by James Baker and others) and the United States didn't spend billions of dollars to help overthrow the democratically elected government of Ukraine in 2014, there would have been no 2014 annexation of Crimea. If the NATO-aligned regime in Ukraine upheld its obligations outlined in the Minsk 1 and Minsk 2 treaties, there would have been no invasion of Donbas or Ukraine in 2022. >You cannot solve problems with wishful thinking. This is very true. Nor can you solve problems with delusional thinking. Since the fall of the Soviet Union the United States and NATO have invaded and destroyed Serbia, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and Syria. We have been bombing countries around the world from Pakistan to Somalia - bombings which continue with little fanfare and practically no attention from the media. The rest of the world (everyone outside of the US, EU and Australia/New Zealand) are well aware of our complete lack of moral and legal authority due to our long and ongoing history of worldwide aggression. The incredibly hypocrisy of pointing the finger at Russia's invasion of Ukraine while our troops right now, today, illegally occupy Syria is only lost on those who are thoroughly propagandized and/or entirely ignorant of the situation. >Pacifism only works if both sides believe in it. The same goes for international law and a "rules based international system". It doesn't work when the unwritten rules don't apply to us, but apply to every country that we consider hostile. The US Congress passed a bill authorizing the invasion of the Hague if any US citizen was ever indicted for war crimes! At the end of the day we can either strive for a peaceful world where every country is held to the same standards for their behavior, or we can have the world we live in where might makes right - we can't have it both ways.

ajuc 3y ago
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- StanislavPetrov 3y ago
  >Caught the russian troll Calling someone a Russian troll for offering an accurate and dispassionate recitation of history is offensive and defamatory. Reasonable, decent and intelligent people know how to disagree and offer conflicting opinions without flinging ad hominen attacks, which also run afoul of the rules of HN. >Russia is afraid because countries joining NATO means Russians can't invade them. Or perhaps they saw what happened to Serbia, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. When the Soviets tried to install their bases in Cuba in 1962, we threatened all out nuclear war to prevent them from stationing their missiles and troops on our border. They wisely retreated. >NATO is the main reason Eastern Europe isn't all conquered by Russia by now. With all the usual genociding that goes on whenever russia conquers somebody. Russia has spent the last 15 months trying to conquer the eastern 20% of Ukraine. No matter how dastardly you think Russia is, it is delusional to believe they have the military might, let alone the desire, to conquer "all of Eastern Europe". For the record, I don't think Russia is "the good guys" - any more than we are. There are no good guys in geopolitics, only bad guys. That is why if we want a peaceful world we need a neutral, universal standard of international law that applies equally to the actions of all countries. Unless we want world war 3 and nuclear holocaust, the current "rules based international order" that allows NATO/US to bomb and invade whoever they want while branding others who do so evil villains is not sustainable.
  - ajuc 3y ago
    [flagged]
  - _kbh_ 3y ago
    > Or perhaps they saw what happened to Serbia, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. When the Soviets tried to install their bases in Cuba in 1962, we threatened all out nuclear war to prevent them from stationing their missiles and troops on our border. They wisely retreated. None of those countries have nuclear stock piles or strike capabilities of Russia, no one is invading Russia because of this reason. > Russia has spent the last 15 months trying to conquer the eastern 20% of Ukraine. No matter how dastardly you think Russia is, it is delusional to believe they have the military might, let alone the desire, to conquer "all of Eastern Europe". They keep talking like they are mere minutes from launching an attack on all of Europe itself, at least weekly on tv. Do they have the capability? no, its clear they barely have the capability to project power past 300km of there borders, but that does not mean that they don't want to. > For the record, I don't think Russia is "the good guys" - any more than we are. The Russians are the invaders, the US and most of the rest of the western world are helping the invaded resist the invasion. This war is as clear cut as WW2, theres bad guys, and good guys. > That is why if we want a peaceful world we need a neutral, universal standard of international law that applies equally to the actions of all countries. Unless we want world war 3 and nuclear holocaust, the current "rules based international order" that allows NATO/US to bomb and invade whoever they want while branding others who do so evil villains is not sustainable. This will never happen when you have countries that can unilaterally ignore agreements they sign because they have the threat of nuclear weapons up their sleeve. Honestly, if you want any kinda semblance of a world that doesn't have insane levels of nuclear proliferation then you must root for Ukraine to win. Otherwise why else would anyone give up nuclear weapons (like Ukraine did, when they gave up thousands of weapons and there strike capability), if the world will not help them when people will nukes do want to invade.

ajuc 3y ago

[flagged]

StanislavPetrov 3y ago
>Caught the russian troll Calling someone a Russian troll for offering an accurate and dispassionate recitation of history is offensive and defamatory. Reasonable, decent and intelligent people know how to disagree and offer conflicting opinions without flinging ad hominen attacks, which also run afoul of the rules of HN. >Russia is afraid because countries joining NATO means Russians can't invade them. Or perhaps they saw what happened to Serbia, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. When the Soviets tried to install their bases in Cuba in 1962, we threatened all out nuclear war to prevent them from stationing their missiles and troops on our border. They wisely retreated. >NATO is the main reason Eastern Europe isn't all conquered by Russia by now. With all the usual genociding that goes on whenever russia conquers somebody. Russia has spent the last 15 months trying to conquer the eastern 20% of Ukraine. No matter how dastardly you think Russia is, it is delusional to believe they have the military might, let alone the desire, to conquer "all of Eastern Europe". For the record, I don't think Russia is "the good guys" - any more than we are. There are no good guys in geopolitics, only bad guys. That is why if we want a peaceful world we need a neutral, universal standard of international law that applies equally to the actions of all countries. Unless we want world war 3 and nuclear holocaust, the current "rules based international order" that allows NATO/US to bomb and invade whoever they want while branding others who do so evil villains is not sustainable.
- ajuc 3y ago
  [flagged]
- _kbh_ 3y ago
  > Or perhaps they saw what happened to Serbia, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. When the Soviets tried to install their bases in Cuba in 1962, we threatened all out nuclear war to prevent them from stationing their missiles and troops on our border. They wisely retreated. None of those countries have nuclear stock piles or strike capabilities of Russia, no one is invading Russia because of this reason. > Russia has spent the last 15 months trying to conquer the eastern 20% of Ukraine. No matter how dastardly you think Russia is, it is delusional to believe they have the military might, let alone the desire, to conquer "all of Eastern Europe". They keep talking like they are mere minutes from launching an attack on all of Europe itself, at least weekly on tv. Do they have the capability? no, its clear they barely have the capability to project power past 300km of there borders, but that does not mean that they don't want to. > For the record, I don't think Russia is "the good guys" - any more than we are. The Russians are the invaders, the US and most of the rest of the western world are helping the invaded resist the invasion. This war is as clear cut as WW2, theres bad guys, and good guys. > That is why if we want a peaceful world we need a neutral, universal standard of international law that applies equally to the actions of all countries. Unless we want world war 3 and nuclear holocaust, the current "rules based international order" that allows NATO/US to bomb and invade whoever they want while branding others who do so evil villains is not sustainable. This will never happen when you have countries that can unilaterally ignore agreements they sign because they have the threat of nuclear weapons up their sleeve. Honestly, if you want any kinda semblance of a world that doesn't have insane levels of nuclear proliferation then you must root for Ukraine to win. Otherwise why else would anyone give up nuclear weapons (like Ukraine did, when they gave up thousands of weapons and there strike capability), if the world will not help them when people will nukes do want to invade.