10 ms·

> Anytime your explanation is “well I dont know why they’d blow their own pipeline, or cut off water to their own civizens forever, they’re just that dumb” you

by _kbh_ 3y ago

> Anytime your explanation is “well I dont know why they’d blow their own pipeline, or cut off water to their own civizens forever, they’re just that dumb” you have to suspect that may not be the explanation. The plan was to try and stop part of the Ukrainian counter offensive, and the secondary goal was to cause an ecological disaster in Ukraine. Thats likely the reason that they blew up the second dam as well. > Russia even tried to warn the UN security council that Ukraine is about to blow up the dam (around the time of your second link, Dec 2022) so they were saying the same “they are evil/dumb” bullcrap about Ukrianians. This is a typical Russian tactic which attempts to blame the enemy for an atrocity that they are about to commit. It's part of Russias extensive disinformation and misinformation campaigns. You see it in action right now, where the Russian propaganda network has been mobilised to claim that Ukraine is about to blow up its own Nuclear power plant and irradiate its own country for now reason extensibly. > I watched your twitter linked video. I understand Russian. You were born in St Petersburg no? id say you more then "understand Russian". > (putting Russia on a path into NATO) We tried that, the Russians flat out rejected the fact that they would have to join NATO like everyone else. > agreeing not to push Ukraine and Georgia into NATO The Russians already had this assurance from countries before the war even started its clearly not about that. > CIA NOT arming training paramilitary groups in Ukraine The CIA has every right to train troops in whatever country it wants to be if it's invited, Russia has no right to dictate what Ukraine does. Ukraine already had a deal that was meant to stop this war. It's called the Budapest Memorandum, in it, in exchange for its nuclear weapons Ukraine got assurances from the UK, US and Russia that they would respect its borders and never threaten its sovereignty. If Russia never bothered respecting the Budapest Memorandum why should we believe they would respect any other agreement?. > Every expert trivially predicted this would be the outvome of NATO expansion for decades, and were systematically ignored. NATO expansion stops Russian imperialism, I have no doubt in my mind that if NATO did not exist today that Russia would be causing its own brand of misery in more countries then it is right now.

EGreg 3y ago
You were born in St Petersburg no? id say you more then "understand Russian". Being born somewhere does of course affect some of your worldview, though not always predictably. Ayn Rand was born in Russia, ran away from communist Russia, and she spent her life being as anti-communist as she could be, developing a philosophy (objectivism) that even argued against altruism. Refugees born in Cuba sometimes have family there, but they don’t exactly endorse the Castro regime. Republicans love to welcome those refugees, but not the ones who come thru Mexico, because they can’t use them to show how socialism fails everywhere. I’m Jewish and my family left as refugees from USSR. I have practically no family there. (As opposed to, say 11 million Ukrainians who have family in Russia and vice versa.) Personally, I think that today’s refugees from Honduras are fleeing much worse conditions (and Trump sending them back is like FDR sending ships full of Jews back). I think many people who could leave USSR did so for economic opportunities and not true “refugee” status, but that’s a separate issue. I also think that if the USSR hadn’t fallen apart, it could have become a lot MORE liberal than the US. Gorbachev started liberal reforms in the 80s, imagine if that continued for another 30-40 years. But instead, the USSR fell apart and he Russia got a president (Boris Yeltsin) who for the first few years did everything USA wanted. “Shock therapy”, privatizing all national resources to oligarchs, all the Chicago School reforms — same as in was tried in Chile, Iraq etc. And same as in those countries, the people rebelled and their representatives voted no confidence to oust him. In 1993, he fired on the parliament, arrested them, and took control with US support. (The president of Peru tried that this year but utterly failed due to having no US support). In 1996 we openly helped meddle in Russia elections to get Yeltsin re-elected while he had an abysmal 6% (not a typo) approval rating. I hope you see that my analysis — while it may be unorthodox - is evenhanded. I condemn Russia for its funding and arming of terrorists in Donbas (Strelkov, Motorola, etc.) Russia also deserves blame for causing this war in Ukraine. I condemn Russia for carpet bombing civilians in Chechnya, Aleppo, Homs. Does that sound like a standard-issue follower of Russian propaganda? But at the same time, I compare apples to apples. Everything Russia does, USA did 10x (including funding paramilitary groups in Ukraine, Syri, etc. for proxy wars). I understand that each side reacts to the other and it’s SHEER FANTASY to expect either Russia or China or Brazil etc. to roll over and allow a roadmap where its enemies to place nukes on their doorstep. USA has 30x as many bases as the rest of the world combined. I am just for dialogue and peace. Same as Bernie was during the cold war when he visited Russia to make sister cities with Burlington. Same as Tulsi. Same as Trump, indeed. And there are billions of people outside the NATO bubble who think like me. I travel… unless you believe as the Pope, multiple heads of state, multiple populations, are all on Putin’s payroll, the answer is that we have to stop the one dimensional cartoonish justifications for the wars, like “they hate us for our freedoms”. I love USA with its freedom of speech, I have gotten Noam Chomsky to admit on video that USA has the greatest protections for speech of any country. But when you love your family, and jow they treat their own members, you can also criticize them for harming others, and want them to do better. Am I biased? To the extent anyone is, sure. But if you asked me about India, or China, or Palestinians, I’d have an opinion too. To me, peace and fairness are the main factors. I’d like to think that I can look past propaganda on multiple sides, not just “the other side”.
- chrysler 3y ago
  >> I understand that each side reacts to the other and it’s SHEER FANTASY to expect either Russia or China or Brazil etc. to roll over and allow a roadmap where its enemies to place nukes on their doorstep. Nobody has placed, or intented to place, nuclear weapons anywhere near Russia. The only country that has nuclear weapons in Eastern Europe is Russia with missiles in Kaliningrad targeting Europe. Map: https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/files/2016/11/russianmissiles-1122-4-855x1024.jpg https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/files/2016/1... Now they have placed nuclear weapons in Belarus too, right on Poland's doorstep while spewing highly aggressive rhetoric and constantly threatening to bomb everyone. All your grievances are made up nonsense.
  - EGreg 3y ago
    To prevent even the possibility of a hostile alliance placing missiles on its doorstep, the USA would have acted militarily the same way much sooner than Russia, wouldn’t wait 8 years trying to reason with diplomacy. And many people around the world would understand that. And they did (eg in Cuban missile crisis). Heck the USA gets involved halfway around the world, invading and occupying and bombing countries for FAR LESS. I don’t think anyone agrees that’s good, but everyone is powerless to stop it. Anyway, whatever the standard is, it’s supremely hypocrtical to expect other “great powers” to roll over, while USA goes to war or foments revolutions in countries that present literally zero threat to it, a few times every decade. It’s not “made up nonsense”. What I am saying is common knowledge, that everyone outside the NATO bubble condemns, especially the “global south”. The USA even declassifies it and admits it, and officially regrets it, saying “mistakes were made”, and “Bush is gone now” etc. No one has been prosecuted in The Hague. On the contrary, they threaten the International Criminal Court if they even so much as start an investigation. Far larger body count, worldwide. As for nukes — the US has broken every promise it ever made about NATO expansion. I mean, it’s broken nearly every treaty it ever made about its own expansion since the times of the colonists. Why would any country ever trust the US when it says it won’t expand or place nukes somewhere? Nuclear Sharing is already very widespread. And they already started building an “anti-nuclear” battery in Poland, ever closer to Russia’s borders, which conveniently could also double as a “nuclear” launch facility. But just call it “defensive”, and suddenly it’s fine right? Wrong, it caused Russia to pull out of its nuclear treaties with USA, making the world less safe for everyone. And for what? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_sharing https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_sharing Oh and 5 days ago: Poland wants USA to give it NUCLEAR WARHEADS FOR ITS PLANES. Well, that didn’t take long: https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/poland-nukes-f35-sharing-pm https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/poland-nukes-f35-s... “Made up concerns.” I’m sure you’ll go to step 2 soon, “well, it’s true but so what, you can’t reason with Russians!”
EGreg 3y ago
Oh and another thing: The CIA has every right to train troops in whatever country it wants to be if it's invited, Russia has no right to dictate what Ukraine does. Not only is this stance destructive, but it's also designed for useful idiots. First of all, the CIA training people in countries has almost always brought calamity and destruction. The CIA itself even studied it and concluded this, but we do it anyway: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/arming-rebels-has-pretty-much-never-worked-180953054/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/arming-rebels-has-... Secondly, would you argue that the KGB had ever right to train the PLO, because they asked for it? Well, Russia was welcomed by the government of Syria (as was Hezbollah from Lebanon) to help stabilize the country against Sunni Jihadists with American weapons. Seeing this, we funded the opposition, which we called "Moderate Rebels", but the Free Syrian Army was largely a myth since 2012, it was all going to Al Nusra front. Was Syria helped by the sunni jihadists? What is the USA even DOING thousands of miles away in a country destabilizing a government that didn't invite them, and which presents ZERO THREAT to them? Well, we all know what: they are "showing leadership" by making sure Putin doesn't help Syria defeat the Jihadists all by himself, and making sure that Russia loses "its last ally in the region": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wib6cLJ99yY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wib6cLJ99yY Well, the USSR was welcomed by the Afghan government. The CIA still trained rebels against that government (Mujahideen) including foreign fighters (Afghan Arabs). Did this help Afghanistan? 1-2 million dead civilians would indicate no. The American people deserve to know about this, but it's secret. It all started in Laos, which was heavily bombed and Americans didn't even know. Why are you seriously defending intelligence agencies training foreign fighters as a good thing when they themselves concluded it never works out well? Ukraine already had a deal that was meant to stop this war. It's called the Budapest Memorandum, in it, in exchange for its nuclear weapons Ukraine got assurances from the UK, US and Russia that they would respect its borders and never threaten its sovereignty. Yeah, that deal was once again pushed by the USA. Clinton's admin felt that all the nukes in Ukraine and Russia were aimed at the USA. It was the USA that pushed for Ukraine to get rid of its nukes. 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-... 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. NATO itself admits on its own website that they undertook the world's largest DISARMAMENT project, to rid Ukraine of its DEFENSIVE weapons, and then presented themselves as a solution: https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_22266.htm https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_22266.htm You may have not known this? As far as violating agreements, that's sadly fairly common among countries. Clinton's Three Nos given in 1994 publicly were amply violated... but if USA violates things it's OK: https://usrussiarelations.org/2/timeline/after-the-fall/34 https://usrussiarelations.org/2/timeline/after-the-fall/34 USA was the first to undermine stability in Ukraine, as I have already shown... with McCain visiting the country and publicly calling for an ouster of a government that's relatively friendly with Russia and shut down the hugely unpopular NATO program that needed to be restarted: https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2010/03/29/ukraine-says-no-to-nato/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2010/03/29/ukraine-says-n... If Russia never bothered respecting the Budapest Memorandum why should we believe they would respect any other agreement?. I mean, a memorandum doesn't have the level of a treaty, in any case. Russia tends to respect treaties way more than the USA does. USA has constantly openly flaunted treaties, often because the next administration comes along. Some selections: Clinton's "Agreed Framework" with Kim Jong Il - torpedoed by US Republicans Iran Deal - Tom Cotton and some radical Republicans openly admitted that they will reneg on the deal as soon as a Republican president comes to power ... and they did! This goes back to the Native American nations. "White man speaks with forked tongue". Jefferson promised the Civilized Tribes they'd be fine because they took on our customs. The following president, Jackson, was a well-known "Indian killer" and he said nah. They sued and won in Supreme Court and he said "let them enforce it". Caused the Trail of Tears, ethnic cleansing. I mean hey, USA took Mexico's territory from California to Texas. It maintains a worldwide protectorate. Yet you are super concerned about China and Russia, which are nowhere close to any of that. Not a word about USA breaking its word. The truth is, you can't really trust the "Great Powers", especially if they are democratic because the next party will try to undo everything the previous party did. I'd rather trust the king of Morocco's treaty, because he's going to be there for decades. But whatever.

by _kbh_ 3y ago

EGreg 3y ago

You were born in St Petersburg no? id say you more then "understand Russian". Being born somewhere does of course affect some of your worldview, though not always predictably. Ayn Rand was born in Russia, ran away from communist Russia, and she spent her life being as anti-communist as she could be, developing a philosophy (objectivism) that even argued against altruism. Refugees born in Cuba sometimes have family there, but they don’t exactly endorse the Castro regime. Republicans love to welcome those refugees, but not the ones who come thru Mexico, because they can’t use them to show how socialism fails everywhere. I’m Jewish and my family left as refugees from USSR. I have practically no family there. (As opposed to, say 11 million Ukrainians who have family in Russia and vice versa.) Personally, I think that today’s refugees from Honduras are fleeing much worse conditions (and Trump sending them back is like FDR sending ships full of Jews back). I think many people who could leave USSR did so for economic opportunities and not true “refugee” status, but that’s a separate issue. I also think that if the USSR hadn’t fallen apart, it could have become a lot MORE liberal than the US. Gorbachev started liberal reforms in the 80s, imagine if that continued for another 30-40 years. But instead, the USSR fell apart and he Russia got a president (Boris Yeltsin) who for the first few years did everything USA wanted. “Shock therapy”, privatizing all national resources to oligarchs, all the Chicago School reforms — same as in was tried in Chile, Iraq etc. And same as in those countries, the people rebelled and their representatives voted no confidence to oust him. In 1993, he fired on the parliament, arrested them, and took control with US support. (The president of Peru tried that this year but utterly failed due to having no US support). In 1996 we openly helped meddle in Russia elections to get Yeltsin re-elected while he had an abysmal 6% (not a typo) approval rating. I hope you see that my analysis — while it may be unorthodox - is evenhanded. I condemn Russia for its funding and arming of terrorists in Donbas (Strelkov, Motorola, etc.) Russia also deserves blame for causing this war in Ukraine. I condemn Russia for carpet bombing civilians in Chechnya, Aleppo, Homs. Does that sound like a standard-issue follower of Russian propaganda? But at the same time, I compare apples to apples. Everything Russia does, USA did 10x (including funding paramilitary groups in Ukraine, Syri, etc. for proxy wars). I understand that each side reacts to the other and it’s SHEER FANTASY to expect either Russia or China or Brazil etc. to roll over and allow a roadmap where its enemies to place nukes on their doorstep. USA has 30x as many bases as the rest of the world combined. I am just for dialogue and peace. Same as Bernie was during the cold war when he visited Russia to make sister cities with Burlington. Same as Tulsi. Same as Trump, indeed. And there are billions of people outside the NATO bubble who think like me. I travel… unless you believe as the Pope, multiple heads of state, multiple populations, are all on Putin’s payroll, the answer is that we have to stop the one dimensional cartoonish justifications for the wars, like “they hate us for our freedoms”. I love USA with its freedom of speech, I have gotten Noam Chomsky to admit on video that USA has the greatest protections for speech of any country. But when you love your family, and jow they treat their own members, you can also criticize them for harming others, and want them to do better. Am I biased? To the extent anyone is, sure. But if you asked me about India, or China, or Palestinians, I’d have an opinion too. To me, peace and fairness are the main factors. I’d like to think that I can look past propaganda on multiple sides, not just “the other side”.

chrysler 3y ago
>> I understand that each side reacts to the other and it’s SHEER FANTASY to expect either Russia or China or Brazil etc. to roll over and allow a roadmap where its enemies to place nukes on their doorstep. Nobody has placed, or intented to place, nuclear weapons anywhere near Russia. The only country that has nuclear weapons in Eastern Europe is Russia with missiles in Kaliningrad targeting Europe. Map: https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/files/2016/11/russianmissiles-1122-4-855x1024.jpg https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/files/2016/1... Now they have placed nuclear weapons in Belarus too, right on Poland's doorstep while spewing highly aggressive rhetoric and constantly threatening to bomb everyone. All your grievances are made up nonsense.
- EGreg 3y ago
  To prevent even the possibility of a hostile alliance placing missiles on its doorstep, the USA would have acted militarily the same way much sooner than Russia, wouldn’t wait 8 years trying to reason with diplomacy. And many people around the world would understand that. And they did (eg in Cuban missile crisis). Heck the USA gets involved halfway around the world, invading and occupying and bombing countries for FAR LESS. I don’t think anyone agrees that’s good, but everyone is powerless to stop it. Anyway, whatever the standard is, it’s supremely hypocrtical to expect other “great powers” to roll over, while USA goes to war or foments revolutions in countries that present literally zero threat to it, a few times every decade. It’s not “made up nonsense”. What I am saying is common knowledge, that everyone outside the NATO bubble condemns, especially the “global south”. The USA even declassifies it and admits it, and officially regrets it, saying “mistakes were made”, and “Bush is gone now” etc. No one has been prosecuted in The Hague. On the contrary, they threaten the International Criminal Court if they even so much as start an investigation. Far larger body count, worldwide. As for nukes — the US has broken every promise it ever made about NATO expansion. I mean, it’s broken nearly every treaty it ever made about its own expansion since the times of the colonists. Why would any country ever trust the US when it says it won’t expand or place nukes somewhere? Nuclear Sharing is already very widespread. And they already started building an “anti-nuclear” battery in Poland, ever closer to Russia’s borders, which conveniently could also double as a “nuclear” launch facility. But just call it “defensive”, and suddenly it’s fine right? Wrong, it caused Russia to pull out of its nuclear treaties with USA, making the world less safe for everyone. And for what? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_sharing https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_sharing Oh and 5 days ago: Poland wants USA to give it NUCLEAR WARHEADS FOR ITS PLANES. Well, that didn’t take long: https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/poland-nukes-f35-sharing-pm https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/poland-nukes-f35-s... “Made up concerns.” I’m sure you’ll go to step 2 soon, “well, it’s true but so what, you can’t reason with Russians!”

EGreg 3y ago

Oh and another thing: The CIA has every right to train troops in whatever country it wants to be if it's invited, Russia has no right to dictate what Ukraine does. Not only is this stance destructive, but it's also designed for useful idiots. First of all, the CIA training people in countries has almost always brought calamity and destruction. The CIA itself even studied it and concluded this, but we do it anyway: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/arming-rebels-has-pretty-much-never-worked-180953054/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/arming-rebels-has-... Secondly, would you argue that the KGB had ever right to train the PLO, because they asked for it? Well, Russia was welcomed by the government of Syria (as was Hezbollah from Lebanon) to help stabilize the country against Sunni Jihadists with American weapons. Seeing this, we funded the opposition, which we called "Moderate Rebels", but the Free Syrian Army was largely a myth since 2012, it was all going to Al Nusra front. Was Syria helped by the sunni jihadists? What is the USA even DOING thousands of miles away in a country destabilizing a government that didn't invite them, and which presents ZERO THREAT to them? Well, we all know what: they are "showing leadership" by making sure Putin doesn't help Syria defeat the Jihadists all by himself, and making sure that Russia loses "its last ally in the region": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wib6cLJ99yY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wib6cLJ99yY Well, the USSR was welcomed by the Afghan government. The CIA still trained rebels against that government (Mujahideen) including foreign fighters (Afghan Arabs). Did this help Afghanistan? 1-2 million dead civilians would indicate no. The American people deserve to know about this, but it's secret. It all started in Laos, which was heavily bombed and Americans didn't even know. Why are you seriously defending intelligence agencies training foreign fighters as a good thing when they themselves concluded it never works out well? Ukraine already had a deal that was meant to stop this war. It's called the Budapest Memorandum, in it, in exchange for its nuclear weapons Ukraine got assurances from the UK, US and Russia that they would respect its borders and never threaten its sovereignty. Yeah, that deal was once again pushed by the USA. Clinton's admin felt that all the nukes in Ukraine and Russia were aimed at the USA. It was the USA that pushed for Ukraine to get rid of its nukes. 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-... 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. NATO itself admits on its own website that they undertook the world's largest DISARMAMENT project, to rid Ukraine of its DEFENSIVE weapons, and then presented themselves as a solution: https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_22266.htm https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_22266.htm You may have not known this? As far as violating agreements, that's sadly fairly common among countries. Clinton's Three Nos given in 1994 publicly were amply violated... but if USA violates things it's OK: https://usrussiarelations.org/2/timeline/after-the-fall/34 https://usrussiarelations.org/2/timeline/after-the-fall/34 USA was the first to undermine stability in Ukraine, as I have already shown... with McCain visiting the country and publicly calling for an ouster of a government that's relatively friendly with Russia and shut down the hugely unpopular NATO program that needed to be restarted: https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2010/03/29/ukraine-says-no-to-nato/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2010/03/29/ukraine-says-n... If Russia never bothered respecting the Budapest Memorandum why should we believe they would respect any other agreement?. I mean, a memorandum doesn't have the level of a treaty, in any case. Russia tends to respect treaties way more than the USA does. USA has constantly openly flaunted treaties, often because the next administration comes along. Some selections: Clinton's "Agreed Framework" with Kim Jong Il - torpedoed by US Republicans Iran Deal - Tom Cotton and some radical Republicans openly admitted that they will reneg on the deal as soon as a Republican president comes to power ... and they did! This goes back to the Native American nations. "White man speaks with forked tongue". Jefferson promised the Civilized Tribes they'd be fine because they took on our customs. The following president, Jackson, was a well-known "Indian killer" and he said nah. They sued and won in Supreme Court and he said "let them enforce it". Caused the Trail of Tears, ethnic cleansing. I mean hey, USA took Mexico's territory from California to Texas. It maintains a worldwide protectorate. Yet you are super concerned about China and Russia, which are nowhere close to any of that. Not a word about USA breaking its word. The truth is, you can't really trust the "Great Powers", especially if they are democratic because the next party will try to undo everything the previous party did. I'd rather trust the king of Morocco's treaty, because he's going to be there for decades. But whatever.