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Since Bush was the one to push them into NATO back in 2008 when the Ukrainian public strongly opposed NATO membership until 2014, but he worked with Yuschenko t

Since Bush was the one to push them into NATO back in 2008 when the Ukrainian public strongly opposed NATO membership until 2014, but he worked with Yuschenko to do it anyway. Except he did not "push them into NATO in 2008". 2008 was the year that Ukraine's membership application was formally rejected by NATO, and there it has sat, in the doghouse, ever since. But Putin invaded anyway, because the NATO noise was never the reason he invaded in the first place. The most significant consequence of the Bush presidency was probably the criminally insane invasion of Iraq -- which arguably did encourage Putin to go into Ukraine, on equally vacuous and fraudulent pretexts. "If they can get away with it, then why can't I?" was apparently his thinking.

EGreg 2y ago
NATO member countries didn’t really want Ukraine, Ukrainian citizens really didn’t want NATO, but in 2008 Bush vowed to press for both Ukraine and Georgia to join NATO. https://www.reuters.com/article/world/bush-to-press-for-ukraine-and-georgia-in-nato-idUSL01417062/ https://www.reuters.com/article/world/bush-to-press-for-ukra... Saakashvili of Georgia (who is now in jail for corruption) also had two breakaway republics at the time — Ossetia and Abhazia — and he engaged in a war with them and kept hoping NATO would come. Back then Putin wasn’t even president, it was Medvedev. Anyway, the same exact war started happening back then, with Russia invading Georgia with tanks moving slowly to the capitol, Tbilisi. Their goal was to intimidate them into agreeing to stop shelling the two breakaway republics and leave them alone. (Georgia and Armenia, in turn, had been protected by Russia from Ottomans, much the same way). The difference in that war was that it ended in a week, because Nicolas Sarkozy (the French president) negotiated a peace agreement successfully. Since then Russia hasn’t invaded Georgia further, simply protected Abhazia and Ossetia, in fact Georgia has been normalizing relations with Russia and opened up direct flights and tourism last year etc. A great outcome for all civilians, compared to what could have been a senseless war. I was in Georgia last year and saw it firsthand. Meanwhile, after the regime change revolution in Ukraine in 2014, the CIA had 8 years to build up weapons and paramilitaries etc. Same exact playbooj that ravaged Afghanistan w the mujahideen (Arabic for “jihadists”) and Afghan Arabs, masterminded by Zbignew Brezhinski. This time it was CIA in Ukraine: https://news.yahoo.com/cia-trained-ukrainian-paramilitaries-may-take-central-role-if-russia-invades-185258008.html https://news.yahoo.com/cia-trained-ukrainian-paramilitaries-... So in 2022 when Russians tried the same playbook (intimidate Kyiv into not shelling the two breakway republics) they didn’t expect the Ukrainians to walk away from the negotiating table. They waited for them in Belarus under Lukashenko (where they had signed the Minsk accords years earlier, endorsed unanimously by the UN security council) but the Ukrainian negotiators kept delaying and venue shopping, and the SBU (Ukrainian KGB) even killed one of them as “a traitor” for being too eager to negotiate, a man appointed by the President himsdlf and who the Ukrainian state department called “a hero”. I personally spoke to David Arakhamia (the guy w the hat) on Facebook Messenger in the first days of the war, he had many Ukrainians on his FB wall begging him to make a deal and avert the war. I tool screenshots and the pleading posts are still there. He privately told me he agreed w me. But when the negotiators entered the room they left after 2 hours. We don’t kmow what happens in closed rooms — whether Baker promised “not an inch” to Gorbachev, or whether the Ukrainian or Russian negotiators ever negotiated in good faith. But the civilians, the people deserve better representation. The war continued, and the tanks found themselves around Kyiv and major firefights in Bucha vs Azov and other armed groups with RPGs shooting at tanks. Kind of like the red triangle videos of Hamas vs Israeli tanks. It’s really unfortunate and was avoidable. Russia expected it to go like the last war, it didn’t. Naftali Bennett was the Israeli PM and he could have played the role of Nicolas Sarkozy did with Medvedev (Russia) and Saakashvili (Georgia). He has a tell-all interview in Hebrew about how he had negotiated peace DIRECTLY between Putin and Zelensky, and had them both make major concessions — eg Ukraine wouldn’t join NATO, and Putin promised not to kill Zelensky. In his interview he said that Zelensky double-checked this and then came out to record his famous video “I am not afraid, I am here” and saying he needs ammunition, not a ride. Why did Bennett not succeed? He said he “coordinated everything to the smallest detail” with the US and UK, he “doesn’t do as he pleases”, and they told him he MUST stop the peace deal. He said he “thought they were wrong” and still does. That peace is worth a shot. But he didn’t continue, and the war didnt stop 2 weeks into it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yma0LxyVVs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yma0LxyVVs Erdogan luckilh WAS able to negotiate a year-long grain export deal in the midst of a war, which likely saved millions of lives — Yemen had been very dependent on Ukrainian grain and had a famine from yet ANOTHER proxy war (this one between Iran and Saudis w US weapons, same kind of war but with roles reversed). But no one seemed to care about Yemenis, despite millions being in far more dire hunger conditions than Ukrainians ever were. The world is complex, but Bush had started the stupid push into NATO, even as NATO members were slowwalking him. My guess is he was angry at Putin’s Munich speech in 2007 NATO, calling out USA for invading Iraq and violating international law. Back in 2001 Putin was the first president after 9/11 to call Bush and offer condolences and they made a joint anti-terrorism initiative. Putin wanted to join NATO back in 2001, he asked the NATO heads but was always rejected. Since 2002(!) Russia tried to stop the invasion of Iraq in the security council and every other way it could but Bush couldn’t be stopped. That is when I think Russia realized that after Kosovo and Iraq, that NATO isnt purely defensive and USA isnt going to be constrained by international law. Putin’s speech in 2007 made Bush want to flip Russia’s neighbors (about which every ambassador said it was a red line for anyone in Russia, “not just Putin”) so the result was predetermined: https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-follows-decades-of-warnings-that-nato-expansion-into-eastern-europe-could-provoke-russia-177999 https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-follows-decades-of-w... As for why Bush did it — I will let Bush say it in his own words: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTX5uvZWu3Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTX5uvZWu3Q
- aguaviva 2y ago
  Right - Bush "pressed for" Ukraine's membership, but he wasn't successful. And in fact Putin had executed (what he should have seen as) a successful containment strategy by that date, via purely diplomatic means. Sanity prevailed, reason prevailed -- but Putin invaded anyway. That's the key takeaway here. As to the other tangents, briefly: (1) No, the Georgia conflict was not "the same exact war". It bears a certain surface similarity, but for what should be obvious reasons, the analogy stops there. In particular Putin's attitude toward (and obsession with) Ukraine is in an entirely different universe from his attitude toward Georgia (the former he sees as basically a part of Russia; the latter merely as a buffer territory). The situation in Georgia's breakaway regions is also entirely different; the violent aspects of these conflicts there go pretty far back (to the early 20th century, with major flare-ups beginning immediately after the dissolution of the USSR, and major atrocities inflicted by both sides). There is, simply put, no analogy to be made with the situation with the regions of Ukraine that Putin is attempting to annex - which never saw any violent separatist conflict prior to Putin's invasion via proxy forces in 2014. In short, there are huge, categorical distinctions between the two conflicts -- describing them as "the same exact war" is really quite silly. (2) Re: Arakhmiya - your spin here is that the Ukrainians could have just walked away by making basically symbolic concessions (like agreeing not to join NATO), and all would have been well; and that we just don't really know happened because it was all behind closed doors. This is a false characterization. By now we do have a pretty good idea of what happened, because the proceedings were quite famous and have been thoroughly investigated (for example in the Foreign Affairs article linked to in the thread below). In a nutshell, the concessions the Russians were demanding were not purely symbolic; rather they were demanding not only those, but drastic reductions in force that would have effectively left Ukraine without viable security guarantees of any kind. Against this backdrop there were also the atrocities happening on the ground in Bucha, Irpin and Mariupol, which in addition to providing a certain chilling effect, persuaded the Ukrainians that relying on Russia's good word for their security would not be in their best interest. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41812302 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41812302 (3) There's no analogy between the Ukraine's paramilitaries and jihadists of any kind; that's just scare rhetoric. Once Russia invaded in March 2014, all bets were off -- and any help provided to Ukraine after that date was purely defensive, by definition, end of story.

EGreg 2y ago

NATO member countries didn’t really want Ukraine, Ukrainian citizens really didn’t want NATO, but in 2008 Bush vowed to press for both Ukraine and Georgia to join NATO. https://www.reuters.com/article/world/bush-to-press-for-ukraine-and-georgia-in-nato-idUSL01417062/ https://www.reuters.com/article/world/bush-to-press-for-ukra... Saakashvili of Georgia (who is now in jail for corruption) also had two breakaway republics at the time — Ossetia and Abhazia — and he engaged in a war with them and kept hoping NATO would come. Back then Putin wasn’t even president, it was Medvedev. Anyway, the same exact war started happening back then, with Russia invading Georgia with tanks moving slowly to the capitol, Tbilisi. Their goal was to intimidate them into agreeing to stop shelling the two breakaway republics and leave them alone. (Georgia and Armenia, in turn, had been protected by Russia from Ottomans, much the same way). The difference in that war was that it ended in a week, because Nicolas Sarkozy (the French president) negotiated a peace agreement successfully. Since then Russia hasn’t invaded Georgia further, simply protected Abhazia and Ossetia, in fact Georgia has been normalizing relations with Russia and opened up direct flights and tourism last year etc. A great outcome for all civilians, compared to what could have been a senseless war. I was in Georgia last year and saw it firsthand. Meanwhile, after the regime change revolution in Ukraine in 2014, the CIA had 8 years to build up weapons and paramilitaries etc. Same exact playbooj that ravaged Afghanistan w the mujahideen (Arabic for “jihadists”) and Afghan Arabs, masterminded by Zbignew Brezhinski. This time it was CIA in Ukraine: https://news.yahoo.com/cia-trained-ukrainian-paramilitaries-may-take-central-role-if-russia-invades-185258008.html https://news.yahoo.com/cia-trained-ukrainian-paramilitaries-... So in 2022 when Russians tried the same playbook (intimidate Kyiv into not shelling the two breakway republics) they didn’t expect the Ukrainians to walk away from the negotiating table. They waited for them in Belarus under Lukashenko (where they had signed the Minsk accords years earlier, endorsed unanimously by the UN security council) but the Ukrainian negotiators kept delaying and venue shopping, and the SBU (Ukrainian KGB) even killed one of them as “a traitor” for being too eager to negotiate, a man appointed by the President himsdlf and who the Ukrainian state department called “a hero”. I personally spoke to David Arakhamia (the guy w the hat) on Facebook Messenger in the first days of the war, he had many Ukrainians on his FB wall begging him to make a deal and avert the war. I tool screenshots and the pleading posts are still there. He privately told me he agreed w me. But when the negotiators entered the room they left after 2 hours. We don’t kmow what happens in closed rooms — whether Baker promised “not an inch” to Gorbachev, or whether the Ukrainian or Russian negotiators ever negotiated in good faith. But the civilians, the people deserve better representation. The war continued, and the tanks found themselves around Kyiv and major firefights in Bucha vs Azov and other armed groups with RPGs shooting at tanks. Kind of like the red triangle videos of Hamas vs Israeli tanks. It’s really unfortunate and was avoidable. Russia expected it to go like the last war, it didn’t. Naftali Bennett was the Israeli PM and he could have played the role of Nicolas Sarkozy did with Medvedev (Russia) and Saakashvili (Georgia). He has a tell-all interview in Hebrew about how he had negotiated peace DIRECTLY between Putin and Zelensky, and had them both make major concessions — eg Ukraine wouldn’t join NATO, and Putin promised not to kill Zelensky. In his interview he said that Zelensky double-checked this and then came out to record his famous video “I am not afraid, I am here” and saying he needs ammunition, not a ride. Why did Bennett not succeed? He said he “coordinated everything to the smallest detail” with the US and UK, he “doesn’t do as he pleases”, and they told him he MUST stop the peace deal. He said he “thought they were wrong” and still does. That peace is worth a shot. But he didn’t continue, and the war didnt stop 2 weeks into it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yma0LxyVVs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yma0LxyVVs Erdogan luckilh WAS able to negotiate a year-long grain export deal in the midst of a war, which likely saved millions of lives — Yemen had been very dependent on Ukrainian grain and had a famine from yet ANOTHER proxy war (this one between Iran and Saudis w US weapons, same kind of war but with roles reversed). But no one seemed to care about Yemenis, despite millions being in far more dire hunger conditions than Ukrainians ever were. The world is complex, but Bush had started the stupid push into NATO, even as NATO members were slowwalking him. My guess is he was angry at Putin’s Munich speech in 2007 NATO, calling out USA for invading Iraq and violating international law. Back in 2001 Putin was the first president after 9/11 to call Bush and offer condolences and they made a joint anti-terrorism initiative. Putin wanted to join NATO back in 2001, he asked the NATO heads but was always rejected. Since 2002(!) Russia tried to stop the invasion of Iraq in the security council and every other way it could but Bush couldn’t be stopped. That is when I think Russia realized that after Kosovo and Iraq, that NATO isnt purely defensive and USA isnt going to be constrained by international law. Putin’s speech in 2007 made Bush want to flip Russia’s neighbors (about which every ambassador said it was a red line for anyone in Russia, “not just Putin”) so the result was predetermined: https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-follows-decades-of-warnings-that-nato-expansion-into-eastern-europe-could-provoke-russia-177999 https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-follows-decades-of-w... As for why Bush did it — I will let Bush say it in his own words: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTX5uvZWu3Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTX5uvZWu3Q

aguaviva 2y ago
Right - Bush "pressed for" Ukraine's membership, but he wasn't successful. And in fact Putin had executed (what he should have seen as) a successful containment strategy by that date, via purely diplomatic means. Sanity prevailed, reason prevailed -- but Putin invaded anyway. That's the key takeaway here. As to the other tangents, briefly: (1) No, the Georgia conflict was not "the same exact war". It bears a certain surface similarity, but for what should be obvious reasons, the analogy stops there. In particular Putin's attitude toward (and obsession with) Ukraine is in an entirely different universe from his attitude toward Georgia (the former he sees as basically a part of Russia; the latter merely as a buffer territory). The situation in Georgia's breakaway regions is also entirely different; the violent aspects of these conflicts there go pretty far back (to the early 20th century, with major flare-ups beginning immediately after the dissolution of the USSR, and major atrocities inflicted by both sides). There is, simply put, no analogy to be made with the situation with the regions of Ukraine that Putin is attempting to annex - which never saw any violent separatist conflict prior to Putin's invasion via proxy forces in 2014. In short, there are huge, categorical distinctions between the two conflicts -- describing them as "the same exact war" is really quite silly. (2) Re: Arakhmiya - your spin here is that the Ukrainians could have just walked away by making basically symbolic concessions (like agreeing not to join NATO), and all would have been well; and that we just don't really know happened because it was all behind closed doors. This is a false characterization. By now we do have a pretty good idea of what happened, because the proceedings were quite famous and have been thoroughly investigated (for example in the Foreign Affairs article linked to in the thread below). In a nutshell, the concessions the Russians were demanding were not purely symbolic; rather they were demanding not only those, but drastic reductions in force that would have effectively left Ukraine without viable security guarantees of any kind. Against this backdrop there were also the atrocities happening on the ground in Bucha, Irpin and Mariupol, which in addition to providing a certain chilling effect, persuaded the Ukrainians that relying on Russia's good word for their security would not be in their best interest. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41812302 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41812302 (3) There's no analogy between the Ukraine's paramilitaries and jihadists of any kind; that's just scare rhetoric. Once Russia invaded in March 2014, all bets were off -- and any help provided to Ukraine after that date was purely defensive, by definition, end of story.