The "facts" are either what Putin says directly, which is undoubtedly the most unreliable source for any kind of fact, or a historic fact with the rhetorical suffix that it somehow connects to such motivations without any real connection established. — Christoffer
Quote them, then, — Olivier5
The West is leading Ukraine down the primrose path and the end result is that Ukraine is going to get wrecked [...] What we're doing is in fact encouraging that outcome. — John Mearsheimer
[NATO expansion is] the most profound strategic blunder, [encouraging] a chain of events that could produce the most serious security threat [...] since the Soviet Union collapsed — Jack Matlock
if we move NATO forces toward Russia's borders [...] it's obviously gonna militarize the situation [and] Russia will not back off, this is existential — Stephen Cohen
NATO enlargement is utterly misguided and risky. True friends of Ukraine, and of global peace, should be calling for a US and NATO compromise with Russia. — Jefferey Sachs
I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests — Bill Burns
the move east [by NATO is] provocative, unwise and a very clear signal to Russia — Malcolm Fraser
Moving so quickly [to expand NATO] was a mistake. [...] Trying to bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO was truly overreaching [and] an especially monumental provocation" — Former US defense secretary Bob Gates
[pushing] Ukraine into NATO [...] is stupid on every level. If you want to start a war with Russia, that's the best way of doing it. — Sir Roderic Lyne, former British ambassador to Russia
There was no provocation ... It's all on Putin. — Olivier5
Moving so quickly [to expand NATO] was a mistake. [...] Trying to bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO was truly overreaching [and] an especially monumental provocation" — Former US defense secretary Bob Gates
lacked the moral ingenuity to shoot first and think later... The French were absolutely disgusting in their defence of the right of the Iraqi people — Olivier5
The French seemed to be friends of the Iraqi children, but they were really more like drug dealers, getting those children killed. — frank
So George Kenan, John Mearsheimer, Stephen Cohen, Henry Kissinger, William Perry, Vladimir Pozner,Jeffrey Sachs, former United Nations Under-Secretary-General Pino Arlacchi, former CIA director Bill Burns, former US Secretary of Defense Bob Gates...
These are all what now? Non-experts on Russia? — Isaac
It's this inability to actually make coherent arguments where premises (facts) actually relate to the conclusion that creates a mess of a discussion where people just cite historical facts as premises for conclusions of their own opinion. — Christoffer
Every single one on this list and the previous one has implicated NATO expansion as the main provocation for war in Ukraine. — Isaac
So what Putin says and what Putin does are consigned to the wastebasket as far as evidence is concerned. What's far more compelling is what you think he thinks. — Isaac
Counter-argument (mine): No premise denies the possibility that an invasion would have happened anyway (logic). If an invasion would have happened anyway, there's no responsibility for Nato in this invasion (logic). — Christoffer
Over a thousand children died from completely preventable consequences of poverty just in the time since you posted that picture. — Isaac
Lol.
"If I disregard everything and assume my conclusion from the beginning, then I am correct".
Saved everyone from reading the ramble above. — StreetlightX
My worry is that we don't agree here even on what constitutes provocation. — FreeEmotion
1. Soviet Union falls.
2. Neighboring nations seek independence.
3. Russia acts aggressively against these nations, claiming they should be part of Russia or exist under Russia's regime. (aiming to invade or gain control in some way)
4. Neighboring nations seek security from these aggressions by joining Nato or asking to join Nato.
5. Neighboring nations joining Nato provokes Russia.
6. Russia invades. — Christoffer
(1) Unicorn monkeys have inflected Putin's brain with rainbows (which have made him mad).
(2) No one has yet precluded the possibility of unicorn monkeys infecting Putin's brain with rainbows.
(3) You can't draw a definitive conclusion that unicorn monkeys have not infected Putin's brains with rainbows (which have made him mad).
QED. — StreetlightX
Is there enough evidence to conclude the possibility that Russia would have invaded Ukraine anyway?
Yes or no? — Christoffer
This is dumb. Just pulling a counterfactual out of thin air then saying ha ha you can't prove it wouldn't have happened is stupid and meaningless and trivial. — StreetlightX
I asked if there's enough evidence to draw a conclusion of a possible other outcome. — Christoffer
And I said this is irrelevant. — StreetlightX
You just don't seem to actually care to read what is being written, just puke out your kneejerk answers without even an inch of engagement. May I predict a similar answer as before? I don't have any proof you will, I'm just inducing the possibility based on analyzing behavior and previous events. — Christoffer
The Left 's response to the war waged in Afghanistan ran into serious problems, in part because the explanations that the Left has provided to the question "Why do they hate us so much? " were dismissed as so many exonerations of the acts of terror themselves. This does not need to be the case. I think we can see, however, how moralistic anti-intellectual trends coupled with a distrust of the Left as so many self-flagellating First World elites has produced a situation in which our very capacity to think about the grounds and causes of the current global conflict is considered impermissible. The cry that "there is no excuse for September 11" has become a means by which to stifle any serious public discussion of how US foreign policy has helped to create a world in which such acts of terror are possible.
We see this most dramatically in the suspension of any attempt to offer balanced reporting on the international conflict, the refusal to include important critiques of the US military effort by Arundhati Roy and Noam Chomsky, for instance, within the mainstream US press. This takes place in tandem with the unprecedented suspension of civil liberties for illegal immigrants and suspected terrorists, and the use of the flag as an ambiguous sign of solidarity with those lost on September 11 and with the current war, as if the sympathy with the one translates, in a single symbolic stroke, into support for the latter. — Judith Butler, Explanation and Exoneration
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