5 ms·

Very eloquently phrased. Some of the commonly accepted truths and geopolitics narratives are quite disturbing and actually very Orwellian in a genuine (and not

Very eloquently phrased. Some of the commonly accepted truths and geopolitics narratives are quite disturbing and actually very Orwellian in a genuine (and not clichéd) sense. Narratives around China and Russia, narratives around our own liberty are completed warped, and to speak out singles you out. There’s definitely a chilling effect about what is acceptable to talk about and what isn’t. See my other comment on this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36097082#36098762 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36097082#36098762

FormerBandmate 3y ago
[flagged]
- MrBuddyCasino 3y ago
  > It's important to remember that they invaded Ukraine for no reason This is not true. Real people have motives, „being evil“ is a child's explanation for things it doesn’t understand.
  - hashworks 3y ago
    You can categorize some motives as evil, but the definition of evil is quite relative. You could extend it to "disturbing the peace", which Russia clearly did.
    - solrik 3y ago
      Big fact is that is was not unprovoked. The war started in 2014 when the US forced Ukraine to pick a side. The best thing for Ukrainians would be neutrality. But the US did not allow that.
  - ROTMetro 3y ago
    What reductionist drivel. Discussion involves making actual points with logic and examples, in this case that would be examples about why Russia's actions (killing tens of thousands of civilians when the year prior to the war only 21 people were killed over territorial conflict, mainly by mines) and motivations (launching a war of aggression against a neighboring country that did nothing in the immediate time frame to justify such a murderous ESCALLATION on Russia's part, there was no immediate need to resort to overwhelming force) and are not evil (even though their troops use rape, pillage, and keep authority over their own through violence).
  - markdown 3y ago
    I mean, "no reason" is understood to mean no good reason. Say you walk next door and shoot your neighbour dead. Many people, even when they know it's because he made friends with his other next-door neighbour when you demanded he only be your friend, will say that you killed your neighbour for no reason. > "being evil“ is a child's explanation Fair enough. It was because Putin is a good person who was lonely and wanted to be loved and appreciated by his closest neighbour. That neighbour made him sad by befriending other people, and Putin had no choice but to slaughter thousands in an attempt to regain the exclusive friendship of his closest neighbour.
    - rmwaite 3y ago
      I don’t know that I agree. At least personally, I think there is a big distinction between a bad reason and no reason. No reason means random. A bad reason you can at least seek to understand - what caused this person to make this decision? We’re they abused? Mentally ill? Etc etc.
  - FormerBandmate 3y ago
    His motive is that he wants to reestablish the Russian Empire and he views the Euromaidan as the US taking Ukraine from him
    - roenxi 3y ago
      > Mr. Putin framed his decision to invade Ukraine as a last-ditch effort to halt the West’s hostile expansion ever closer to Russia’s borders. ~ https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/24/world/europe/putin-ukraine-speech.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/24/world/europe/putin-ukrain... > It is a fact that over the past 30 years we have been patiently trying to come to an agreement with the leading NATO countries regarding the principles of equal and indivisible security in Europe. In response to our proposals, we invariably faced either cynical deception and lies or attempts at pressure and blackmail, while the North Atlantic alliance continued to expand despite our protests and concerns. ~ Vladimir Putin
      - MrBuddyCasino 3y ago
        He is completely correct. After the collapse of the USSR, Russia repeatedly tried to join NATO. It was rebuffed by the US - why? Instead of forging a new alliance, the west preferred to uphold old friend-enemy distinctions, and instead moved the NATO ever closer to Russia‘s border, ignoring its security needs and breaking old promises (as evidenced by the embassy cable leaks). Then, Ukraine shelled the Russian civilian minority population for years after the manufactured coup of the 2014 Euromaidan revolution. It started to suppress Russian language and culture. The Azov Nazi army committed cruel war crimes. Guarantees regarding the black sea fleet were no longer trustworthy. Essentially, they „kicked the dog until it bites“ and then blamed the dog. Putin repeatedly and very clearly communicated his (reasonable) terms for peace, and still people act like he can’t be reasoned with. Instead the West decided to send Ukrainian men into a meatgrinder, probably until the supply of recruits is exhausted. Prominent establishment people like John Mearsheimer have been warning that this would be the inevitable outcome of Nato expansion, all the way back in the 90s, and that it was the greatest strategic error of the west. They were ignored by the same people that lied about Weapons of Mass Destruction to start another war. The US State Department has a lot of blood on its hands.
- MrVandemar 3y ago
  > It's important to remember that they invaded Ukraine for no reason, That's extremely reductive. The situation is a bit more complex than that. I don't think they were right to invade -- not remotely -- I think it's abhorrent. But there is a little more historical context with the US and other regional tensions than Putin rolling a 1D6 and deciding that meant "hey, I'm bored, let's invade".
  - CamperBob2 3y ago
    The best excuse they could come up with is essentially, "Chill out. I only robbed your house because you threatened to join the neighborhood watch!" So, yeah, they're the bad guys, and no, there is no way to spin it.
    - super256 3y ago
      The first thing that dies in war is the truth. Amnesty International, the UN and Human Rights Watch documented very well how Ukrainian extremists and paramilitary organizations tortured and put people randomly into detentions after the allegedly USA friendly government was installed in the Ukraine in 2014. Here are some money quotes which I found interesting: September 2014: “Members of the Aidar territorial defence battalion, operating in the north Luhansk region, have been involved in widespread abuses, including abductions, unlawful detention, ill-treatment, theft, extortion, and possible executions. The Aidar battalion is one of over thirty so-called volunteer battalions to have emerged in the wake of the conflict, which have been loosely integrated into Ukrainian security structures as they seek to retake separatist held areas. In the course of a two-week research mission to the region, an Amnesty International researcher interviewed dozens of victims and witnesses of the abuses, as well as local officials, army commanders and police officers in the area and representatives of the Aidar battalion. Our findings indicate that, while formally operating under the command of the Ukrainian security forces combined headquarters in the region members of the Aidar battalion act with virtually no oversight or control, and local police are either unwilling or unable to address the abuses.” https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/8000/eur500402014en.pdf https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/8000/eur500402014... May 2015: “On the pro-Kyiv side, Amnesty International has particular concerns about Right Sector, a volunteer militia created by a pro-Kyiv nationalist political grouping .2 Former Right Sector prisoners detailed a horrifying spectrum of abuses, including mock executions, hostagetaking, extortion, extremely violent beatings, death threats and the denial of urgently-needed medical care. Using an abandoned Pioneer camp near the village of Velykomyhailivka, near Dnipropetrovsk, as an ad hoc prison, Right Sector has reportedly held dozens of civilian prisoners as hostages, extorting large amounts of money from them and their families” https://www.amnesty.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/EUR5016832015ENGLISH.pdf https://www.amnesty.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/EUR501... August 2016: “On 24 June 2016, a number of IDPs, together with a ‘self-defence’ group in Odesa, seized a communal building after numerous attempts at obtaining support from the regional authority to solve their housing problems.143 OHCHR notes a worrying tendency to resolve pressing socio-economic and political issues with the help of voluntary battalions and paramilitary groups.” https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/UA/Ukraine15thReport.pdf https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/UA/Ukraine15thRepo... July 2016: “In most of the nine cases Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch investigated, pro-government forces, including members of so-called volunteer battalions, initially detained the individuals and then handed them over to the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), who eventually moved them into the regular criminal justice system. Some were later exchanged for persons held by separatists and others released without trial. In three cases detailed in this report the SBU allegedly continued the enforced disappearances, keeping the individuals in unacknowledged detention for periods ranging from six weeks to 15 months. One individual was exchanged, the other two simply released without trial. With regard to two of the individuals, there is no record whatsoever of their detention. The June 2016 UN report noted that the cases of incommunicado detention and torture brought to their attention in late 2015 and early 2016 “mostly implicate SBU” and specifically mentioned the SBU compound in Kharkiv as an alleged place of unofficial detention. Based on the research findings detailed in this report, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch believe unlawful, unacknowledged detentions have taken place in SBU premises in Kharkiv, Kramatorsk, Izyum, and Mariupol. We received compelling testimony from a range of sources, including recently released detainees, that as of June 2016 as many as 16 people remain in secret detention at the SBU premises in Kharkiv. Ukrainian authorities have denied operating any other detention facilities than their only official temporary detention center in Kyiv and denied having any information regarding the alleged abuses by SBU documented in this report. Most interviewees told Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch they were tortured before their transfer to SBU’s facilities. Several also alleged that after being transferred to SBU premises they were, variously, beaten, subjected to electric shocks, and threatened with rape, execution, and retaliation against family members, in order to induce them to confess to involvement with separatism-related criminal activities or to provide information.“ https://www.hrw.org/report/2016/07/21/you-dont-exist/arbitrary-detentions-enforced-disappearances-and-torture-eastern https://www.hrw.org/report/2016/07/21/you-dont-exist/arbitra... “Members of extreme right-wing groups also conducted forceful and discriminatory actions against the Roma community. On 18 April, members of C14 extreme right-wing group forcibly confined Roma people at the main train station in Kyiv, checking IDs and searching personal belongings.128 Also, following threats to forcefully evict Roma residents, members of C14 burned down a Roma camp in Kyiv on 21 April. The police were present, but did not prevent the attack from happening” https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/UA/ReportUkraineFev-May2018_EN.pdf https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/UA/ReportUkraineFe... June 2018: “Since the beginning of 2018, members of radical groups such as C14, Right Sector, Traditsii i Poryadok (Traditions and Order), Karpatska Sich and others have carried out at least two dozen violent attacks, threats, or instances of intimidation in Kyiv, Vinnitsa, Uzhgorod, Lviv, Chernivtsi, Ivano-Frankivsk, and other Ukrainian cities. Law enforcement authorities have rarely opened investigations. In the cases in which they did, there is no indication that authorities took effective investigative measures to identify the attackers, even in cases in which the assailants publicly claimed responsibility on social media.” https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/06/14/ukraine-investigate-punish-hate-crimes https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/06/14/ukraine-investigate-puni...
- __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
  Do you think Cheney's war was significantly more justified than Putin's war? People who start wars are legitimately bad, but let's not pretend that Russia is special here .
  - pydry 3y ago
    America would be a better place if it had more people furious that America is turning into Russia, and fewer people trying to justify that it's not quite as bad.
    - EFreethought 3y ago
      I think the problem is that a lot of people in America want America to be more like Russia.
    - rayiner 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - kspacewalk2 3y ago
        There's no comparison at all. The vast majority of the people who died in Iraq were killed by other Iraqis in a sectarian conflict. Yes, it was sparked by the US invasion, and they definitely should be blamed for both invading in the first place and for fucking it up once they did, but American soldiers did not, with very very few exceptions, go around indiscriminately killing civilians and leveling cities block by block WW2-style, like the Russians did in Bucha, Mariupol, etc.
        rayiner 3y ago
        The excess death rate from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is at up to 4.5 million people: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/05/15/war-on-terror-911-deaths-afghanistan-iraq/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/05/15/war-on-terro... At an individual moral level maybe it’s worse for a soldier to kill civilians directly, than to kill them indirectly by overthrowing the government and destabilizing the health system. But if you’re comparing nations I think you have to look at a macro level, not at the level of individual morality. “Team America: World Police” foreign policy has a much higher aggregate body count than Russia’s territorial expansionist foreign policy.

FormerBandmate 3y ago

[flagged]

MrBuddyCasino 3y ago
> It's important to remember that they invaded Ukraine for no reason This is not true. Real people have motives, „being evil“ is a child's explanation for things it doesn’t understand.
- hashworks 3y ago
  You can categorize some motives as evil, but the definition of evil is quite relative. You could extend it to "disturbing the peace", which Russia clearly did.
  - solrik 3y ago
    Big fact is that is was not unprovoked. The war started in 2014 when the US forced Ukraine to pick a side. The best thing for Ukrainians would be neutrality. But the US did not allow that.
- ROTMetro 3y ago
  What reductionist drivel. Discussion involves making actual points with logic and examples, in this case that would be examples about why Russia's actions (killing tens of thousands of civilians when the year prior to the war only 21 people were killed over territorial conflict, mainly by mines) and motivations (launching a war of aggression against a neighboring country that did nothing in the immediate time frame to justify such a murderous ESCALLATION on Russia's part, there was no immediate need to resort to overwhelming force) and are not evil (even though their troops use rape, pillage, and keep authority over their own through violence).
- markdown 3y ago
  I mean, "no reason" is understood to mean no good reason. Say you walk next door and shoot your neighbour dead. Many people, even when they know it's because he made friends with his other next-door neighbour when you demanded he only be your friend, will say that you killed your neighbour for no reason. > "being evil“ is a child's explanation Fair enough. It was because Putin is a good person who was lonely and wanted to be loved and appreciated by his closest neighbour. That neighbour made him sad by befriending other people, and Putin had no choice but to slaughter thousands in an attempt to regain the exclusive friendship of his closest neighbour.
  - rmwaite 3y ago
    I don’t know that I agree. At least personally, I think there is a big distinction between a bad reason and no reason. No reason means random. A bad reason you can at least seek to understand - what caused this person to make this decision? We’re they abused? Mentally ill? Etc etc.
- FormerBandmate 3y ago
  His motive is that he wants to reestablish the Russian Empire and he views the Euromaidan as the US taking Ukraine from him
  - roenxi 3y ago
    > Mr. Putin framed his decision to invade Ukraine as a last-ditch effort to halt the West’s hostile expansion ever closer to Russia’s borders. ~ https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/24/world/europe/putin-ukraine-speech.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/24/world/europe/putin-ukrain... > It is a fact that over the past 30 years we have been patiently trying to come to an agreement with the leading NATO countries regarding the principles of equal and indivisible security in Europe. In response to our proposals, we invariably faced either cynical deception and lies or attempts at pressure and blackmail, while the North Atlantic alliance continued to expand despite our protests and concerns. ~ Vladimir Putin
    - MrBuddyCasino 3y ago
      He is completely correct. After the collapse of the USSR, Russia repeatedly tried to join NATO. It was rebuffed by the US - why? Instead of forging a new alliance, the west preferred to uphold old friend-enemy distinctions, and instead moved the NATO ever closer to Russia‘s border, ignoring its security needs and breaking old promises (as evidenced by the embassy cable leaks). Then, Ukraine shelled the Russian civilian minority population for years after the manufactured coup of the 2014 Euromaidan revolution. It started to suppress Russian language and culture. The Azov Nazi army committed cruel war crimes. Guarantees regarding the black sea fleet were no longer trustworthy. Essentially, they „kicked the dog until it bites“ and then blamed the dog. Putin repeatedly and very clearly communicated his (reasonable) terms for peace, and still people act like he can’t be reasoned with. Instead the West decided to send Ukrainian men into a meatgrinder, probably until the supply of recruits is exhausted. Prominent establishment people like John Mearsheimer have been warning that this would be the inevitable outcome of Nato expansion, all the way back in the 90s, and that it was the greatest strategic error of the west. They were ignored by the same people that lied about Weapons of Mass Destruction to start another war. The US State Department has a lot of blood on its hands.
MrVandemar 3y ago
> It's important to remember that they invaded Ukraine for no reason, That's extremely reductive. The situation is a bit more complex than that. I don't think they were right to invade -- not remotely -- I think it's abhorrent. But there is a little more historical context with the US and other regional tensions than Putin rolling a 1D6 and deciding that meant "hey, I'm bored, let's invade".
- CamperBob2 3y ago
  The best excuse they could come up with is essentially, "Chill out. I only robbed your house because you threatened to join the neighborhood watch!" So, yeah, they're the bad guys, and no, there is no way to spin it.
  - super256 3y ago
    The first thing that dies in war is the truth. Amnesty International, the UN and Human Rights Watch documented very well how Ukrainian extremists and paramilitary organizations tortured and put people randomly into detentions after the allegedly USA friendly government was installed in the Ukraine in 2014. Here are some money quotes which I found interesting: September 2014: “Members of the Aidar territorial defence battalion, operating in the north Luhansk region, have been involved in widespread abuses, including abductions, unlawful detention, ill-treatment, theft, extortion, and possible executions. The Aidar battalion is one of over thirty so-called volunteer battalions to have emerged in the wake of the conflict, which have been loosely integrated into Ukrainian security structures as they seek to retake separatist held areas. In the course of a two-week research mission to the region, an Amnesty International researcher interviewed dozens of victims and witnesses of the abuses, as well as local officials, army commanders and police officers in the area and representatives of the Aidar battalion. Our findings indicate that, while formally operating under the command of the Ukrainian security forces combined headquarters in the region members of the Aidar battalion act with virtually no oversight or control, and local police are either unwilling or unable to address the abuses.” https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/8000/eur500402014en.pdf https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/8000/eur500402014... May 2015: “On the pro-Kyiv side, Amnesty International has particular concerns about Right Sector, a volunteer militia created by a pro-Kyiv nationalist political grouping .2 Former Right Sector prisoners detailed a horrifying spectrum of abuses, including mock executions, hostagetaking, extortion, extremely violent beatings, death threats and the denial of urgently-needed medical care. Using an abandoned Pioneer camp near the village of Velykomyhailivka, near Dnipropetrovsk, as an ad hoc prison, Right Sector has reportedly held dozens of civilian prisoners as hostages, extorting large amounts of money from them and their families” https://www.amnesty.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/EUR5016832015ENGLISH.pdf https://www.amnesty.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/EUR501... August 2016: “On 24 June 2016, a number of IDPs, together with a ‘self-defence’ group in Odesa, seized a communal building after numerous attempts at obtaining support from the regional authority to solve their housing problems.143 OHCHR notes a worrying tendency to resolve pressing socio-economic and political issues with the help of voluntary battalions and paramilitary groups.” https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/UA/Ukraine15thReport.pdf https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/UA/Ukraine15thRepo... July 2016: “In most of the nine cases Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch investigated, pro-government forces, including members of so-called volunteer battalions, initially detained the individuals and then handed them over to the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), who eventually moved them into the regular criminal justice system. Some were later exchanged for persons held by separatists and others released without trial. In three cases detailed in this report the SBU allegedly continued the enforced disappearances, keeping the individuals in unacknowledged detention for periods ranging from six weeks to 15 months. One individual was exchanged, the other two simply released without trial. With regard to two of the individuals, there is no record whatsoever of their detention. The June 2016 UN report noted that the cases of incommunicado detention and torture brought to their attention in late 2015 and early 2016 “mostly implicate SBU” and specifically mentioned the SBU compound in Kharkiv as an alleged place of unofficial detention. Based on the research findings detailed in this report, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch believe unlawful, unacknowledged detentions have taken place in SBU premises in Kharkiv, Kramatorsk, Izyum, and Mariupol. We received compelling testimony from a range of sources, including recently released detainees, that as of June 2016 as many as 16 people remain in secret detention at the SBU premises in Kharkiv. Ukrainian authorities have denied operating any other detention facilities than their only official temporary detention center in Kyiv and denied having any information regarding the alleged abuses by SBU documented in this report. Most interviewees told Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch they were tortured before their transfer to SBU’s facilities. Several also alleged that after being transferred to SBU premises they were, variously, beaten, subjected to electric shocks, and threatened with rape, execution, and retaliation against family members, in order to induce them to confess to involvement with separatism-related criminal activities or to provide information.“ https://www.hrw.org/report/2016/07/21/you-dont-exist/arbitrary-detentions-enforced-disappearances-and-torture-eastern https://www.hrw.org/report/2016/07/21/you-dont-exist/arbitra... “Members of extreme right-wing groups also conducted forceful and discriminatory actions against the Roma community. On 18 April, members of C14 extreme right-wing group forcibly confined Roma people at the main train station in Kyiv, checking IDs and searching personal belongings.128 Also, following threats to forcefully evict Roma residents, members of C14 burned down a Roma camp in Kyiv on 21 April. The police were present, but did not prevent the attack from happening” https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/UA/ReportUkraineFev-May2018_EN.pdf https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/UA/ReportUkraineFe... June 2018: “Since the beginning of 2018, members of radical groups such as C14, Right Sector, Traditsii i Poryadok (Traditions and Order), Karpatska Sich and others have carried out at least two dozen violent attacks, threats, or instances of intimidation in Kyiv, Vinnitsa, Uzhgorod, Lviv, Chernivtsi, Ivano-Frankivsk, and other Ukrainian cities. Law enforcement authorities have rarely opened investigations. In the cases in which they did, there is no indication that authorities took effective investigative measures to identify the attackers, even in cases in which the assailants publicly claimed responsibility on social media.” https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/06/14/ukraine-investigate-punish-hate-crimes https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/06/14/ukraine-investigate-puni...
__MatrixMan__ 3y ago
Do you think Cheney's war was significantly more justified than Putin's war? People who start wars are legitimately bad, but let's not pretend that Russia is special here .
- pydry 3y ago
  America would be a better place if it had more people furious that America is turning into Russia, and fewer people trying to justify that it's not quite as bad.
  - EFreethought 3y ago
    I think the problem is that a lot of people in America want America to be more like Russia.
  - rayiner 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - kspacewalk2 3y ago
      There's no comparison at all. The vast majority of the people who died in Iraq were killed by other Iraqis in a sectarian conflict. Yes, it was sparked by the US invasion, and they definitely should be blamed for both invading in the first place and for fucking it up once they did, but American soldiers did not, with very very few exceptions, go around indiscriminately killing civilians and leveling cities block by block WW2-style, like the Russians did in Bucha, Mariupol, etc.
      - rayiner 3y ago
        The excess death rate from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is at up to 4.5 million people: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/05/15/war-on-terror-911-deaths-afghanistan-iraq/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/05/15/war-on-terro... At an individual moral level maybe it’s worse for a soldier to kill civilians directly, than to kill them indirectly by overthrowing the government and destabilizing the health system. But if you’re comparing nations I think you have to look at a macro level, not at the level of individual morality. “Team America: World Police” foreign policy has a much higher aggregate body count than Russia’s territorial expansionist foreign policy.