4 ms·

Perhaps that's why the UK has so much more sympathy for Ukraine than the US. Yes the US fought in WWII with a lot of human investment, the amount of direct thr

Perhaps that's why the UK has so much more sympathy for Ukraine than the US. Yes the US fought in WWII with a lot of human investment, the amount of direct threats to American soil was much smaller than the UK and the memories of the war are those of the fights in the jungles and not of American children fleeing bombs in major cities

pjc50 1y ago
It helps. I think Boris Johnson was very happy to play the Churchill role. The more interesting question is always why America suddenly forgot all its usual rhetoric of freedom, democracy, and liberating random countries (sometimes against their will) in this particular case, and whether it has anything to do with propaganda and bribery operations.
- potato3732842 1y ago
  IDK, maybe it has something to do with spending 20yr replacing the Taliban with the Taliban. You do not get a blank check to engage in nation building boondoggles until a "good one" comes along.
  - ithkuil 1y ago
    That can totally explain the lack of desire to get involved. That doesn't explain the victim blaming though. Zelenski is depicted as a war criminal because he refused to capitulate to a stronger enemy. War is crazy and brutal and engaging in one is going to get people killed. But I don't understand how we can expect some other country to just give up and yet we don't expect ourselves to do the same when somebody attacks us. Hence my only explanation is that no living person in America truly knows how it feels to be invaded.
    - inquirerGeneral 1y ago
      [dead]
    - rainworld 1y ago
      >some other country to just give up That some other country gets over 55% of its budget from the West and almost all its materiel. Total direct “aid” over 320 billion so far. Total costs to the West much higher still. And the result for Ukraine is more territory lost, more destruction, and hundreds of thousands of casualties. No one would and could stop them from continuing the war on their own but imagine what that would look like. And the result for the West is a stronger, hostile Russia with deepening ties to China, North Korea etc. Strategic failure. >Zelenski is depicted as a war criminal No. What we saw was a noisy attempt by the US to salvage its strategic failure in Ukraine/Russia. Russians weren’t fooled. It failed.
      - twixfel 1y ago
        Eh, money well spent tbh. Alternative, letting Russia just win, is worse. Give no quarter to fascism. We learnt that in the 30s. PS russia isn’t stronger lol.
        rainworld 1y ago
        [flagged]
        ithkuil 1y ago
        I personally don't care about ukraine nor ukrainians; I have no stake in the game. But I think all humans are fundamentally the same and when I see a bunch of humans fighting for their freedom I can understand them. I understand their motivations. I also understand the imperialistic motivations. I understand russian need for status and pride and their relationship with their grandiose past. I understand all these emotions. All these emotions are exploited by various interests, sure, but nevertheless without those emotions of the masses war couldn't happen. What irks me is when people do not want to put themselves in the clothes of somebody else at all, an d just conclude that one group of people is not entitled to have a given emotion. So Ukraine is not entitled to defend themselves because <insert_some_rational_reason> but russia is entitled to defend their separatists because <insert_some_rational_reason>. It's the double standard that irks me. I think we can agree that war is shit and everybody would be better off without it. But, no, that's not the proposed alternative. The proposed alternative is that a group of people, in this case the Ukrainians, effectively surrender and become diminished. Future generations of russians will look at them and say "we're justified in treating you ask shit because after all we won and you lost". This happened over and over in history. Hell, this is why most white supremacists think they are the chosen ones, because whites conquered. So how should I judge the people who want to defend themselves? I honestly cannot blame them from trying their best.
  - pjc50 1y ago
    Cried wolf situation, I suppose. Because the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq was illegitimate and failed, therefore supporting Ukraine is bad (ignoring the totally different facts of the different situation).
    - mrguyorama 1y ago
      Also the exact same politicians and party that was so fucking Gung Ho at bombing the middle east (not even picking a country!) that you were "Unamerican" for not believing straight up lies by the administration (that nobody went to jail for) are the ones crying about defending a Sovereign nation being unilaterally invaded in Europe. They are also tee-ing us up to attack Iran, and have provably spent money attacking Houthis despite knowing that Europe would take care of themselves. They are full of shit and they know it. They do not care.
  - username332211 1y ago
    Never-mind that, there's every indication this one is in fact yet another bad one. The Taliban didn't return to power in Afghanistan, because the war was unjust according to international law, or morally repugnant or any of that. That has never mattered. And it won't ever matter. The Taliban won because American strategy was defective from the start. While great victories with thousands of Taliban getting massacred were common, none of those contributed the destruction of the Taliban or any other strategic objective. There had been minimal effort to learn from the failures of Vietnam and the idea of learning from British victories against the insurgents in Malaya and South Africa was unthinkable. And the situation in Ukraine gives every indication of being similar. The Ukrainian side conducts ambitious operations, some of them impressive successes, but ever since the summer of 2023, victory only seems to be getting more distant as time goes by.
    - ttshaw1 1y ago
      Why, because Russia can grind out a village a week? Ukraine is inflicting disproportionate losses and is supplied to the hilt by Europe, while Russia's moving closer every day to a Potemkin economy.
      - username332211 1y ago
        Ukraine is inflicting massively disproportionate losses. Meanwhile, Ukraine does very aggressive conscription while Russia mostly deploys volunteers and only resorted to reservists in 2022 in an emergency. It doesn't really add up, does it. And the collapse of the Russian economy will happen any day now for the past 3 years. After 20 years of being told the military leadership of the western world had COIN all figured out, you're going to have to give people something more than a prayer that the enemy's economy will collapse all of a sudden. Proud ignorance of the basic facts of the field or of the enemy won't procure much public support any more.
        ttshaw1 1y ago
        Of course Ukraine conscripts, they're in a war for their survival. They aren't drafting anyone under 25, by the way, so it's not as dire as you seem to think. And Russia's beating people and throwing them in pits if they won't sign contracts to go to Ukraine, so it's not all roses over there. It's not at all unreasonable to think that Ukraine can continue ceding ground and shredding Ladas full of mobiks until Putin kicks the bucket, or the Russian economy collapses. A healthy economy doesn't have a 20% key interest rate for 8 months straight, you know. We've already seen one large-scale mutiny in the Russian armed forces, too, so who knows what else might happen? You haven't proposed any sort of alternative to continuing to arm and fund Ukraine. What's your idea, cut them off and say "good luck?" How does that benefit anyone besides Russia and the minority of Ukrainians who don't want to fight? edit: if you're thinking that I care about the financial cost of arming Ukraine, I don't. This is the best money we've ever spent and the only time I've respected our MIC, and I wish we were sending more weapons and more financial support. Every time Ukraine spends $100,000 of aid destroying a piece of Russian armor, that's saving us god knows how much in money spent on deterrence.
- ta1243 1y ago
  Boris Johnson contributed to untold damage to the UK with covid and brexit. But his actions with Ukraine were unimpeachable. As a populist leader throwing immediate public support (I think he was the first foreign leader to go to Kyiv, certainly one of the first) it kneecapped the Useful Idiots like Farage.
  - hermitcrab 1y ago
    Agreed. It is the only worthwhile thing Johnson has done in his miserable life.
  - roryirvine 1y ago
    It was actually Ursula von der Leyen who was first, arriving in Kyiv the day before Johnson's visit (neither of them were aware of the other's travel plans, for security reasons). It is fair to say that Boris did end up forming a particularly strong bond with Zelenskyy, though if you wanted to be cynical you might perhaps point out that two of his three subsequent visits to Kyiv coincided with some of the trickiest moments in the Partygate scandal, and allowed him to get out of events that would likely have proven embarrassing for him.
- mlinhares 1y ago
  The average American (like the average citizen of almost any other country) doesn't care about this in general and needs leadership to sway their opinion one way or another. If the leaders don't care, they hold enough power and visibility to make it moot and get people to care about other things, like inflation, price of eggs or immigrants stealing their jobs. People have this thinking nations have these widely shared opinions when they don't, the politics and visible leaders are the ones shaping public opinion.
  - freeopinion 1y ago
    I think your main point is valid, but the pedantic in me struggles with your wording. I think the point you are tring to make is this: Nations don't have a single shared opinion even if they have a single shared action. It frusrates me that the people of Russia allow their country to continue its aggression even in the face of such staggering losses. I can't understand their thinking. Then I remind myself that there is not just a single brain called Russia. There is not even just a single brain in the leadership of Russia. I suspect that the percentage of US voters that support Ukraine is pretty high. A quick internet seach tells me that Pres. Trump's current approval rating is well below 50%. But I suspect support for impeachment is very much lower than that and support for a coup is practically non-existent. It makes sense to me that the same holds in Russia. Tens of thousands of Russians each month lose a husband/son/father/brother in this war. Some may blame Ukraine and want revenge. Some may feel some patriotic or nationalistic justification for their loss. Others may hate Putin for it. Still others may convert to pacifism. But there seems little evidence that there is any will to do what it takes to challenge the power that keeps sending thousands more to their death. A very small percent of the population can continue to inflict this horror on all of Russia. I would love to believe that there are voices even within Putin's hearing that quietly but consistently advocate for peace and somehow don't get removed. Imagine that there are people who make a point of never publicly falling out, but once a week hand deliver a note about improved GDP if Russia ended the invasion. Or they verbally suggest seaside resorts that could host old-fashioned vacations if they weren't in a war zone. Or they ponder out loud how much better the domestic auto industry could be if some of the military spending were diverted. Imagine the combined efforts of a few people to make sure Putin gets one subtle peacemaker message each day. Please don't condemn all Russians. And please don't condemn all USians. And certainly please don't condemn all Americans. I don't know how much the average American cares, but I for one hope it is more than zero.

pjc50 1y ago

It helps. I think Boris Johnson was very happy to play the Churchill role. The more interesting question is always why America suddenly forgot all its usual rhetoric of freedom, democracy, and liberating random countries (sometimes against their will) in this particular case, and whether it has anything to do with propaganda and bribery operations.

potato3732842 1y ago
IDK, maybe it has something to do with spending 20yr replacing the Taliban with the Taliban. You do not get a blank check to engage in nation building boondoggles until a "good one" comes along.
- ithkuil 1y ago
  That can totally explain the lack of desire to get involved. That doesn't explain the victim blaming though. Zelenski is depicted as a war criminal because he refused to capitulate to a stronger enemy. War is crazy and brutal and engaging in one is going to get people killed. But I don't understand how we can expect some other country to just give up and yet we don't expect ourselves to do the same when somebody attacks us. Hence my only explanation is that no living person in America truly knows how it feels to be invaded.
  - inquirerGeneral 1y ago
    [dead]
  - rainworld 1y ago
    >some other country to just give up That some other country gets over 55% of its budget from the West and almost all its materiel. Total direct “aid” over 320 billion so far. Total costs to the West much higher still. And the result for Ukraine is more territory lost, more destruction, and hundreds of thousands of casualties. No one would and could stop them from continuing the war on their own but imagine what that would look like. And the result for the West is a stronger, hostile Russia with deepening ties to China, North Korea etc. Strategic failure. >Zelenski is depicted as a war criminal No. What we saw was a noisy attempt by the US to salvage its strategic failure in Ukraine/Russia. Russians weren’t fooled. It failed.
    - twixfel 1y ago
      Eh, money well spent tbh. Alternative, letting Russia just win, is worse. Give no quarter to fascism. We learnt that in the 30s. PS russia isn’t stronger lol.
      - rainworld 1y ago
        [flagged]
        ithkuil 1y ago
        I personally don't care about ukraine nor ukrainians; I have no stake in the game. But I think all humans are fundamentally the same and when I see a bunch of humans fighting for their freedom I can understand them. I understand their motivations. I also understand the imperialistic motivations. I understand russian need for status and pride and their relationship with their grandiose past. I understand all these emotions. All these emotions are exploited by various interests, sure, but nevertheless without those emotions of the masses war couldn't happen. What irks me is when people do not want to put themselves in the clothes of somebody else at all, an d just conclude that one group of people is not entitled to have a given emotion. So Ukraine is not entitled to defend themselves because <insert_some_rational_reason> but russia is entitled to defend their separatists because <insert_some_rational_reason>. It's the double standard that irks me. I think we can agree that war is shit and everybody would be better off without it. But, no, that's not the proposed alternative. The proposed alternative is that a group of people, in this case the Ukrainians, effectively surrender and become diminished. Future generations of russians will look at them and say "we're justified in treating you ask shit because after all we won and you lost". This happened over and over in history. Hell, this is why most white supremacists think they are the chosen ones, because whites conquered. So how should I judge the people who want to defend themselves? I honestly cannot blame them from trying their best.
- pjc50 1y ago
  Cried wolf situation, I suppose. Because the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq was illegitimate and failed, therefore supporting Ukraine is bad (ignoring the totally different facts of the different situation).
  - mrguyorama 1y ago
    Also the exact same politicians and party that was so fucking Gung Ho at bombing the middle east (not even picking a country!) that you were "Unamerican" for not believing straight up lies by the administration (that nobody went to jail for) are the ones crying about defending a Sovereign nation being unilaterally invaded in Europe. They are also tee-ing us up to attack Iran, and have provably spent money attacking Houthis despite knowing that Europe would take care of themselves. They are full of shit and they know it. They do not care.
- username332211 1y ago
  Never-mind that, there's every indication this one is in fact yet another bad one. The Taliban didn't return to power in Afghanistan, because the war was unjust according to international law, or morally repugnant or any of that. That has never mattered. And it won't ever matter. The Taliban won because American strategy was defective from the start. While great victories with thousands of Taliban getting massacred were common, none of those contributed the destruction of the Taliban or any other strategic objective. There had been minimal effort to learn from the failures of Vietnam and the idea of learning from British victories against the insurgents in Malaya and South Africa was unthinkable. And the situation in Ukraine gives every indication of being similar. The Ukrainian side conducts ambitious operations, some of them impressive successes, but ever since the summer of 2023, victory only seems to be getting more distant as time goes by.
  - ttshaw1 1y ago
    Why, because Russia can grind out a village a week? Ukraine is inflicting disproportionate losses and is supplied to the hilt by Europe, while Russia's moving closer every day to a Potemkin economy.
    - username332211 1y ago
      Ukraine is inflicting massively disproportionate losses. Meanwhile, Ukraine does very aggressive conscription while Russia mostly deploys volunteers and only resorted to reservists in 2022 in an emergency. It doesn't really add up, does it. And the collapse of the Russian economy will happen any day now for the past 3 years. After 20 years of being told the military leadership of the western world had COIN all figured out, you're going to have to give people something more than a prayer that the enemy's economy will collapse all of a sudden. Proud ignorance of the basic facts of the field or of the enemy won't procure much public support any more.
      - ttshaw1 1y ago
        Of course Ukraine conscripts, they're in a war for their survival. They aren't drafting anyone under 25, by the way, so it's not as dire as you seem to think. And Russia's beating people and throwing them in pits if they won't sign contracts to go to Ukraine, so it's not all roses over there. It's not at all unreasonable to think that Ukraine can continue ceding ground and shredding Ladas full of mobiks until Putin kicks the bucket, or the Russian economy collapses. A healthy economy doesn't have a 20% key interest rate for 8 months straight, you know. We've already seen one large-scale mutiny in the Russian armed forces, too, so who knows what else might happen? You haven't proposed any sort of alternative to continuing to arm and fund Ukraine. What's your idea, cut them off and say "good luck?" How does that benefit anyone besides Russia and the minority of Ukrainians who don't want to fight? edit: if you're thinking that I care about the financial cost of arming Ukraine, I don't. This is the best money we've ever spent and the only time I've respected our MIC, and I wish we were sending more weapons and more financial support. Every time Ukraine spends $100,000 of aid destroying a piece of Russian armor, that's saving us god knows how much in money spent on deterrence.
ta1243 1y ago
Boris Johnson contributed to untold damage to the UK with covid and brexit. But his actions with Ukraine were unimpeachable. As a populist leader throwing immediate public support (I think he was the first foreign leader to go to Kyiv, certainly one of the first) it kneecapped the Useful Idiots like Farage.
- hermitcrab 1y ago
  Agreed. It is the only worthwhile thing Johnson has done in his miserable life.
- roryirvine 1y ago
  It was actually Ursula von der Leyen who was first, arriving in Kyiv the day before Johnson's visit (neither of them were aware of the other's travel plans, for security reasons). It is fair to say that Boris did end up forming a particularly strong bond with Zelenskyy, though if you wanted to be cynical you might perhaps point out that two of his three subsequent visits to Kyiv coincided with some of the trickiest moments in the Partygate scandal, and allowed him to get out of events that would likely have proven embarrassing for him.
mlinhares 1y ago
The average American (like the average citizen of almost any other country) doesn't care about this in general and needs leadership to sway their opinion one way or another. If the leaders don't care, they hold enough power and visibility to make it moot and get people to care about other things, like inflation, price of eggs or immigrants stealing their jobs. People have this thinking nations have these widely shared opinions when they don't, the politics and visible leaders are the ones shaping public opinion.
- freeopinion 1y ago
  I think your main point is valid, but the pedantic in me struggles with your wording. I think the point you are tring to make is this: Nations don't have a single shared opinion even if they have a single shared action. It frusrates me that the people of Russia allow their country to continue its aggression even in the face of such staggering losses. I can't understand their thinking. Then I remind myself that there is not just a single brain called Russia. There is not even just a single brain in the leadership of Russia. I suspect that the percentage of US voters that support Ukraine is pretty high. A quick internet seach tells me that Pres. Trump's current approval rating is well below 50%. But I suspect support for impeachment is very much lower than that and support for a coup is practically non-existent. It makes sense to me that the same holds in Russia. Tens of thousands of Russians each month lose a husband/son/father/brother in this war. Some may blame Ukraine and want revenge. Some may feel some patriotic or nationalistic justification for their loss. Others may hate Putin for it. Still others may convert to pacifism. But there seems little evidence that there is any will to do what it takes to challenge the power that keeps sending thousands more to their death. A very small percent of the population can continue to inflict this horror on all of Russia. I would love to believe that there are voices even within Putin's hearing that quietly but consistently advocate for peace and somehow don't get removed. Imagine that there are people who make a point of never publicly falling out, but once a week hand deliver a note about improved GDP if Russia ended the invasion. Or they verbally suggest seaside resorts that could host old-fashioned vacations if they weren't in a war zone. Or they ponder out loud how much better the domestic auto industry could be if some of the military spending were diverted. Imagine the combined efforts of a few people to make sure Putin gets one subtle peacemaker message each day. Please don't condemn all Russians. And please don't condemn all USians. And certainly please don't condemn all Americans. I don't know how much the average American cares, but I for one hope it is more than zero.