6 ms·

He just wants more funds for his department.

dralley 2y ago
Reflexive cynicism about the military isn't as warranted in 2024 as it might have been a decade ago. And it wasn't really warranted a decade ago either, when Russia was blowing up Czech ammunition depots, airliners full of Dutch people, conducting assassinations in the center of Berlin, and sending "little green men" to Ukraine. It could be an accident, sure, but suspicion of sabotage is not paranoia. And also, like, the German government (and European governments generally) DOES need to spend more on their military. They underinvested for decades and are now stuck needing to catch up very quickly.
- coldtea 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - dralley 2y ago
    Russia and Russia alone is responsible for "kick-starting" this war. And providing Ukraine with aid so that they don't get steamrolled is not morally wrong. Nor is refusing to do so so that Russia can more quickly get around to torturing and repressing the population a moral right.
    - coldtea 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - Terr_ 2y ago
        > Yeah, it's not like a line in the sand, admitted as such by both sides, was broken, one with explicit promises that it wouldn't be. Ah, your oddly-vague wording must of course be referring to how Russia explicitly promised to respect Ukraine's borders [0], a line they are violently crossing as we speak. First with an undeclared guerrilla-war and annexation, and more-recently with a massive "surprise" invasion--after spending several weeks of lying about their buildup and pretending that other countries were just trying to make them look bad. If you are sarcastically suggesting something else... Well, go ahead, share the evidence for whatever-it-is, the kind of documentary evidence which countries ensure is always abundant for any remotely important international promise. (That is in contrast to self-serving lies from the Kremlin, which rely heavily on refusing to explain.) [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum
        coldtea 2y ago
        >Ah, your oddly-vague wording must of course be referring to how Russia explicitly promised to respect Ukraine's borders After it was itself promised NATO wont expand eastwards and Ukraine will not be used to get their bases next to its borders. Not really strange how they broken this agreement after 30 years of broken promises, sanctions, open threats, an orange coup in their neighbor, among other things. But sure, nothing more anti-imperialist by a coalition formed by the foremost imperialist power with its client states, expanding for "democracy"...
        Terr_ 2y ago
        Oh look, exactly what I predicted in advance: A self-serving lie from the Kremlin, which relies heavily on your refusal to provide any form of evidence. In particular, the kind of written details which any nation (including the USSR) would have insisted upon getting in triplicate, for the kind of important thing you claim existed. Also, why haven't you paid me the $50,000 you promised, you disgraceful deadbeat? You say you don't remember it? It doesn't matter if I can't provide any kind of document or recording that would be standard for that kind of thing, it must have happened--or else why would I keep bringing it up?
      - aguaviva 2y ago
        It's not like a line in the sand, admitted as such by both sides, was broken, one with explicit promises that it wouldn't be. Indeed it's not, because that's an extremely distorted and misleading narrative. For example, on multiple occasions (notably 1994 and 1997) Russia signed treaties validating NATO expansion long after this supposed "explicit promise" (which also wasn't quite what you seem to think). We also have statements from the two most important players on the Soviet side (Gorbachev and Shevardnadze) thoroughly discounting this version of events. Whatever source you got that narrative from is simply misinformed, or worse.
      - dralley 2y ago
        Listening to people who probably proclaim themselves "anti-imperialists" give full-throated defenses of imperialism never gets old. >prepared to fight their proxy war to the last of them The natural corollary to this ridiculous "fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian" argument, which you guys never seem to acknowledge, is that it already assumes that Russia will murder every last Ukrainian and take their land. That's just a given, and you then try to blame the West as though they stuck their hand into a lawnmower or something. None of this holds up to any scrutiny, though. The whole NATO expansion narrative barely exists in Russia, they don't talk about that, they talk about standard-issue Imperialist narratives like "Ukraine doesn't exist, it's not a real country, not a real language, not a real ethnicity, Ukrainians are 'little brothers' to the superior Russian spirit, everything good in Ukraine is Russian and everything Ukrainian is bad, and we Russians must liberate them from their mental delusions of being something other than Russian and restore Russia to our natural greatness & place in the world"
        coldtea 2y ago
        >Listening to people who probably proclaim themselves "anti-imperialists" give full-throated defenses of imperialism never gets old. Yeah, nothing like nato when it comes to anti-imperialism...
        inopinatus 2y ago
        The entire matter of NATO expansion is irrelevant, a dancing monkey to distract the credulous.
        coldtea 2y ago
        [flagged]
        inopinatus 2y ago
        Not even Fox News would stoop to this level of harebrained whataboutism. > goat ...lovers in Afghanistan or outright, unfettered racism > something that they have repeatededly said they consider a casus belli or fawning gullibility. Ukraine isn’t a member of NATO and until 2014 was dead-set against it. Same for Finland and Sweden until 2022. Whatever happened in those years to trigger such a change in public sentiment, I wonder. > It must be because they thought, "hey, what better than to get in a costly war", have hundreds of thousands of their own die “Meat waves” are a decades old Soviet military doctrine that has not changed, and Putin is an ex-KGB thug. Regard for human life isn’t in that picture.
      - inopinatus 2y ago
        Neither cable goes to Ukraine. Is Finland fighting someone’s proxy war, too? How about Germany? Sweden? Lithuania? How about Russia? Whose proxy are they? Anyone parroting that phrase is simply repeating Kremlin-sourced propaganda, intended to wrench at the weak minds of “useful idiots” and supply a pretext for what they truly wish: lily-livered appeasement that rewards aggression with recognition. Life under Russian occupation is one of rape, torture, kidnapping, looting, execution. Would you like to be raped and tortured? How about your family, in front of you, before they are executed? No? No. That is why Ukraine fights. “Proxy war”, my ass. Ukrainian resistance to Russian aggression is existential.
    - loandbehold 2y ago
      Russia is responsible but not alone. This war could have been prevented by not pushing Ukraine into NATO. It's THE reason for the war.
      - holowoodman 2y ago
        Quite the opposite. Ukraine has been prevented from joining NATO by the west, especially Germany and France, for fear of angering Russia. This course of action has led to war. The proper course of action in hindsight would have been to have Ukraine join NATO asap back then.
        spookie 2y ago
        Same for Georgia. But here we are.
      - Terr_ 2y ago
        Compare: "The serial-killer is responsible but not alone, this second stabbing could have been prevented by not trying to protect yourself from being stabbed again by the same serial-killer!" That may be true in the most narrow and mechanical sense, but the way it presents blame is very wrong.
      - fsloth 2y ago
        That’s bullshit. I’m sorry, but I’m tired of apologists falling to Russian state lies. Falling over to Russian lies is not independent thinking. The first rule of kremnology is that Russia always lies without a shame, as lies are usefull and they incur zero cost on the liar. Russia invaded because they felt Ukraine was showing a bad example of slavic people becoming a democracy. Also Russia has always had an affinity towards Ukrainian genocide. See Holodomor. Also there is the narrative of lost colonial honor, Crimea, Catherine the great, and other idiotic pseudo-historical ramblings of a demented autocratic propagnada.
        Terr_ 2y ago
        > Also there is the narrative of lost colonial honor, Useful word: Revanchism [0], for people who want to conquer places they claim they once-owned. [0] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/revanchist https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/revanchist
  - simion314 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - victorbjorklund 2y ago
    What do you mean with proxy war? Are you saying russia is a puppet and a proxy for Iran and North Korea who provide the weapons and even soldiers?
    - inopinatus 2y ago
      The folks parroting that phrase live inside an echo chamber. They’re so entrenched they never think to consider that their words might have an interpretation unfavourable to the Kremlin.
      - Terr_ 2y ago
        Yeah, imagine trusting labels given by the same country that sent their troops and tanks into their neighbor in 2014, and then spent years smirking and lying their asses off about not being involved.
      - Terr_ 2y ago
        Imagine trusting the labels given out by the same country which sent their troops and tanks across the border in 2014, and then spent years smirking and lying their asses off about not being involved. Plus shooting down a civilian jet killing ~300 people. "Oh, sure, they engage in extra-sketchy forms of state-sponsored violence and chronically lie about it... but that just means they know the material! They'd never lie to me, because we have a special spiritual connection."
- Wool2662 2y ago
  And yet reflexive cynicism about politicians is just being a realist :D

Reflexive cynicism about the military isn't as warranted in 2024 as it might have been a decade ago. And it wasn't really warranted a decade ago either, when Russia was blowing up Czech ammunition depots, airliners full of Dutch people, conducting assassinations in the center of Berlin, and sending "little green men" to Ukraine. It could be an accident, sure, but suspicion of sabotage is not paranoia. And also, like, the German government (and European governments generally) DOES need to spend more on their military. They underinvested for decades and are now stuck needing to catch up very quickly.

coldtea 2y ago
[flagged]
- dralley 2y ago
  Russia and Russia alone is responsible for "kick-starting" this war. And providing Ukraine with aid so that they don't get steamrolled is not morally wrong. Nor is refusing to do so so that Russia can more quickly get around to torturing and repressing the population a moral right.
  - coldtea 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - Terr_ 2y ago
      > Yeah, it's not like a line in the sand, admitted as such by both sides, was broken, one with explicit promises that it wouldn't be. Ah, your oddly-vague wording must of course be referring to how Russia explicitly promised to respect Ukraine's borders [0], a line they are violently crossing as we speak. First with an undeclared guerrilla-war and annexation, and more-recently with a massive "surprise" invasion--after spending several weeks of lying about their buildup and pretending that other countries were just trying to make them look bad. If you are sarcastically suggesting something else... Well, go ahead, share the evidence for whatever-it-is, the kind of documentary evidence which countries ensure is always abundant for any remotely important international promise. (That is in contrast to self-serving lies from the Kremlin, which rely heavily on refusing to explain.) [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum
      - coldtea 2y ago
        >Ah, your oddly-vague wording must of course be referring to how Russia explicitly promised to respect Ukraine's borders After it was itself promised NATO wont expand eastwards and Ukraine will not be used to get their bases next to its borders. Not really strange how they broken this agreement after 30 years of broken promises, sanctions, open threats, an orange coup in their neighbor, among other things. But sure, nothing more anti-imperialist by a coalition formed by the foremost imperialist power with its client states, expanding for "democracy"...
        Terr_ 2y ago
        Oh look, exactly what I predicted in advance: A self-serving lie from the Kremlin, which relies heavily on your refusal to provide any form of evidence. In particular, the kind of written details which any nation (including the USSR) would have insisted upon getting in triplicate, for the kind of important thing you claim existed. Also, why haven't you paid me the $50,000 you promised, you disgraceful deadbeat? You say you don't remember it? It doesn't matter if I can't provide any kind of document or recording that would be standard for that kind of thing, it must have happened--or else why would I keep bringing it up?
    - aguaviva 2y ago
      It's not like a line in the sand, admitted as such by both sides, was broken, one with explicit promises that it wouldn't be. Indeed it's not, because that's an extremely distorted and misleading narrative. For example, on multiple occasions (notably 1994 and 1997) Russia signed treaties validating NATO expansion long after this supposed "explicit promise" (which also wasn't quite what you seem to think). We also have statements from the two most important players on the Soviet side (Gorbachev and Shevardnadze) thoroughly discounting this version of events. Whatever source you got that narrative from is simply misinformed, or worse.
    - dralley 2y ago
      Listening to people who probably proclaim themselves "anti-imperialists" give full-throated defenses of imperialism never gets old. >prepared to fight their proxy war to the last of them The natural corollary to this ridiculous "fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian" argument, which you guys never seem to acknowledge, is that it already assumes that Russia will murder every last Ukrainian and take their land. That's just a given, and you then try to blame the West as though they stuck their hand into a lawnmower or something. None of this holds up to any scrutiny, though. The whole NATO expansion narrative barely exists in Russia, they don't talk about that, they talk about standard-issue Imperialist narratives like "Ukraine doesn't exist, it's not a real country, not a real language, not a real ethnicity, Ukrainians are 'little brothers' to the superior Russian spirit, everything good in Ukraine is Russian and everything Ukrainian is bad, and we Russians must liberate them from their mental delusions of being something other than Russian and restore Russia to our natural greatness & place in the world"
      - coldtea 2y ago
        >Listening to people who probably proclaim themselves "anti-imperialists" give full-throated defenses of imperialism never gets old. Yeah, nothing like nato when it comes to anti-imperialism...
        inopinatus 2y ago
        The entire matter of NATO expansion is irrelevant, a dancing monkey to distract the credulous.
        coldtea 2y ago
        [flagged]
        inopinatus 2y ago
        Not even Fox News would stoop to this level of harebrained whataboutism. > goat ...lovers in Afghanistan or outright, unfettered racism > something that they have repeatededly said they consider a casus belli or fawning gullibility. Ukraine isn’t a member of NATO and until 2014 was dead-set against it. Same for Finland and Sweden until 2022. Whatever happened in those years to trigger such a change in public sentiment, I wonder. > It must be because they thought, "hey, what better than to get in a costly war", have hundreds of thousands of their own die “Meat waves” are a decades old Soviet military doctrine that has not changed, and Putin is an ex-KGB thug. Regard for human life isn’t in that picture.
    - inopinatus 2y ago
      Neither cable goes to Ukraine. Is Finland fighting someone’s proxy war, too? How about Germany? Sweden? Lithuania? How about Russia? Whose proxy are they? Anyone parroting that phrase is simply repeating Kremlin-sourced propaganda, intended to wrench at the weak minds of “useful idiots” and supply a pretext for what they truly wish: lily-livered appeasement that rewards aggression with recognition. Life under Russian occupation is one of rape, torture, kidnapping, looting, execution. Would you like to be raped and tortured? How about your family, in front of you, before they are executed? No? No. That is why Ukraine fights. “Proxy war”, my ass. Ukrainian resistance to Russian aggression is existential.
  - loandbehold 2y ago
    Russia is responsible but not alone. This war could have been prevented by not pushing Ukraine into NATO. It's THE reason for the war.
    - holowoodman 2y ago
      Quite the opposite. Ukraine has been prevented from joining NATO by the west, especially Germany and France, for fear of angering Russia. This course of action has led to war. The proper course of action in hindsight would have been to have Ukraine join NATO asap back then.
      - spookie 2y ago
        Same for Georgia. But here we are.
    - Terr_ 2y ago
      Compare: "The serial-killer is responsible but not alone, this second stabbing could have been prevented by not trying to protect yourself from being stabbed again by the same serial-killer!" That may be true in the most narrow and mechanical sense, but the way it presents blame is very wrong.
    - fsloth 2y ago
      That’s bullshit. I’m sorry, but I’m tired of apologists falling to Russian state lies. Falling over to Russian lies is not independent thinking. The first rule of kremnology is that Russia always lies without a shame, as lies are usefull and they incur zero cost on the liar. Russia invaded because they felt Ukraine was showing a bad example of slavic people becoming a democracy. Also Russia has always had an affinity towards Ukrainian genocide. See Holodomor. Also there is the narrative of lost colonial honor, Crimea, Catherine the great, and other idiotic pseudo-historical ramblings of a demented autocratic propagnada.
      - Terr_ 2y ago
        > Also there is the narrative of lost colonial honor, Useful word: Revanchism [0], for people who want to conquer places they claim they once-owned. [0] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/revanchist https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/revanchist
- simion314 2y ago
  [flagged]
- victorbjorklund 2y ago
  What do you mean with proxy war? Are you saying russia is a puppet and a proxy for Iran and North Korea who provide the weapons and even soldiers?
  - inopinatus 2y ago
    The folks parroting that phrase live inside an echo chamber. They’re so entrenched they never think to consider that their words might have an interpretation unfavourable to the Kremlin.
    - Terr_ 2y ago
      Yeah, imagine trusting labels given by the same country that sent their troops and tanks into their neighbor in 2014, and then spent years smirking and lying their asses off about not being involved.
    - Terr_ 2y ago
      Imagine trusting the labels given out by the same country which sent their troops and tanks across the border in 2014, and then spent years smirking and lying their asses off about not being involved. Plus shooting down a civilian jet killing ~300 people. "Oh, sure, they engage in extra-sketchy forms of state-sponsored violence and chronically lie about it... but that just means they know the material! They'd never lie to me, because we have a special spiritual connection."
Wool2662 2y ago
And yet reflexive cynicism about politicians is just being a realist :D