This lacks credibility. "well-known fact", "textbook strategy of a terrorist cell (did you just make that up?)" are statements that prove nothing. — CuddlyHedgehog

Oh, you don't think terrorist groups think of themselves being the vanguard of a emerging resistance movement? Like the name Rote Armee Fraktion doesn't give it away? Lol.

Well, I could say that you partly have a point in that Khaled Sheikh Mohammed didn't anticipate the US invading Afghanistan, when interviewed later in custody. You might then argue then that Al Qaeda thought that the attacks would cow out the US away from the region. Because the US went away from Somalia after losing few casualties.

But anyway, in the bigger picture after the invasion of Iraq, the franchise got well underway. After all, the founder of ISIS had been earlier the commander of Al Qaeda in Iraq.

But then again, I assume that's just an opinion for you.

And yet you are hitting all the usual propaganda bullet-points. Historical claims and grievances are always brought up to justify wars and invasions. Crimea was not Russian land before it was absorbed by the Russian Empire (with help from Ukrainian Cossacks), and it was not majority Russian until Stalin's ethnic cleansings. We could go back and forth like this endlessly - but what's the point? None of this justifies Russian aggression in this particular instance. Taking advantage of the turmoil in a neighboring country to stealthily invade part of its territory with troops, special forces and civilian thugs, overthrow the local government, close down or take over non-compliant media, intimidate or kidnap dissidents, hastily stage a "referendum" with fabricated results - I say that is wrong, whatever else may have been the case historically or contemporaneously. — SophistiCat

It is wrong but it doesn't exist in a vacuum. The combined meddling by foreign powers in Ukraine on both sides have led to a situation in which Russia came out the winner of that particular game by simply grabbing land and correctly guessing nobody would do anything about it. The lesson for NATO/US "don't fuck around trying to influence elections or having neighbouring countries join NATO in Russia's backyard unless you're prepared to back it up with military might because Russia is prepared".

Tough luck for Ukraine. And it will happen again and again until NATO stops courting countries surrounding Russia. If we do have the superior values, economic systems and culture, they'll come about by themselves.

Tough luck for Ukraine. — Benkei

Ukrainians do truly regret giving away there own nuclear arsenal. Even if they had kept just a few missiles and maintained them in order, a small nuclear arsenal would very likely prevented the annexation.

And sometimes some people get it right beforehand like John Mearsheimer writing in 1993:

Most Western observers want Ukraine to rid itself of nuclear weapons as quickly as possible. In this view, articulated recently by President Bill Clinton, Europe would be more stable if Russia were to become "the only nuclear-armed successor state to the Soviet Union." The United States and its European allies have been pressing Ukraine to transfer all of the nuclear weapons on its territory to the Russians, who naturally think this is an excellent idea.

President Clinton is wrong. The conventional wisdom about Ukraine's nuclear weapons is wrong. In fact, as soon as it declared independence, Ukraine should have been quietly encouraged to fashion its own nuclear deterrent. Even now, pressing Ukraine to become a nonnuclear state is a mistake.

A nuclear Ukraine makes sense for two reasons. First, it is imperative to maintain peace between Russia and Ukraine. That means ensuring that the Russians, who have a history of bad relations with Ukraine, do not move to reconquer it. Ukraine cannot defend itself against a nuclear-armed Russia with conventional weapons, and no state, including the United States, is going to extend to it a meaningful security guarantee. Ukrainian nuclear weapons are the only reliable deterrent to Russian aggression. If the U.S. aim is to enhance stability in Europe, the case against a nuclear-armed Ukraine is unpersuasive.

See The Case for a Ukrainian Nuclear Deterrent


But on the other hand, we (especially us Finns) ought to be very thankfull that the Soviet politicians that handled the collapse of the Soviet Union were not similarly inept and of extremely dangerous type that Yugoslavia had. (As one Serb intellectual put it, worst thing to happen to Serbia was Milosevic.) The war between Ukraine and Russia clearly shows that the peacefull collapse of the Soviet Union wasn't at all such an obvious outcome. Perhaps only the utter disillusionment of the ruling class saved the people of the Soviet Union from true misery, but one should tip the hat for the last Soviets in power. If the Soviet Union would have collapsed into civil war like Yugoslavia did, the death toll likely would have been enormous. What we saw were just brief firefights and tanks rolling on the streets of Moscow, violence that was contained. The government here back then did make plans to make refugee camps for refugees fleeing a collapse of Russia, as typically collapses of the state in Russia have resulted in bloodshed and war. Luckily it never happened and Russia did bounce back. Ukraine never did recover economically.

But history doesn't know any alternative outcomes and hence every time a war has been prevented, it cannot be shown to be so.

Just how do the West's action compare here with starting wars and annexing parts of other countries is indeed important. — ssu

The West's actions are worse. — René Descartes

Would the world be better with Saddam Hussein having Kuwait? — ssu

Yes — René Descartes

You perfectly prove my point! :rofl: :clap:

That a dictator, that ruined his country by first starting a disasterous war against it's neighbour, Iran, and then afterwards attacked it's ally and supporter, was is in your words a OK thing at it would be better if he would have gotten away with it.

Too bad that an UN backed operation with 32 countries with countries like Syria, Egypt, Saudi-Arabia, Morocco, Pakistan, Oman, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and oh, Sweden, fought against this annexation that is somehow seems justified by you. Because the fact is that in this World event you are utterly incapable of seeing anything else than your hated US with it's hegemonic aspirations. Everything goes around this, nothing else. And because the elder Bush administration as the US in general was so rotten, for you it would have been better if the World would have accepted Iraq can just annex it's wealthy neighbour.

Or in the case of the Ukrainian revolution and the annexation and war that followed it, which I was discussing, "the West's actions are worse".

Yep, this is exactly proves the point of how the totally ludicrous and utterly incoherent the average anti-West attitude is. Perhaps it's the moronic stupidity of the American right-wing discourse, which indeed is stupid and intended for ignorant morons, that creates this hatred, but why it then makes to loose all rational perspective that ends up with absolutely hilarious views like the above. Your a perfect case sample of this attitude were this attitude of being critical about the West then totally blurs all critical thinking of the opposite.

Oh yes, perhaps you will admit that Saddam Hussein or even Putin made some bad, but in the end they don't compare at all, actually, with the evil of the West which you so perfectly showed in your hilarious response.

And likely you won't at all understand my point about the total lack of objectivity and perspective. No, you will just assume that I'm a Fox News watching moron if I don't agree with you and that I'm totally non-critical about the US. That's the typical way people respond nowdays.

But then again, I assume that's just an opinion for you. — ssu

Which one? You mixed opinions with a sprinkle of facts to make it look more robust. Failed.

[Delete] @Baden

Well, as I said "one-sided criticism lacks is the ability to put things into perspective". That you think it would be better if Saddam Hussein could have kept Kuwait (than him being forced out of Kuwait by a large UN approved coalition) proves it well..

And with Ukraine, the West "was worse", evidently being the bigger culprit for the war....somehow.

[Delete] @Baden

It does not mean Russia isn't a bad country, it just means the West is also very bad. — René Descartes

Of course, I agree with this. It's just politics.

It's good you understand this actually - many people buy in the propaganda of their own countries, and refuse to have an honest look at the facts.

[Delete] @Baden

No not in the Ukraine, but in Vietnam, in Panama, in the Falklands, at Hiroshima, in Egypt, in Afghanistan, etc.

It does not mean Russia isn't a bad country, it just means the West is also very bad. — René Descartes

Small question: are countries bad?

If we are talking about Ukraine or some specific political event, is it relevant then to say "but the US dropped atomic bombs to Hiroshima and Nagasaki!". What's the connection? Or we should say that because... we don't know that or what? It's not even an answer.

In the end it seems to come down to refuse that one side or the other has a justified point, even if not everything they say is correct. Here the perspective issue comes to be important.

So has Russia facts on it's side when it comes to Ukraine? Some, naturally. The majority of Crimeans were likely indeed in favour of joining Russia. Just like the Sudeten Germans earlier were enthusiastic to join Germany. Yes, Nikita moved it to Ukraine during the Soviet Union. Does this then justify for a military attack and to start a war that is basically going on in Eastern Ukraine? In my view, no. Because military aggression and instilling a war that still is going on far overweighs the Russian justifications.

Add there that this has been a typical way how Russia has operated in it's "Near Abroad", financing and creating separatist movements and if these are on the verge of being routed, then it intervenes military. (Russia did this to Georgia years before there was the Russo-Georgian war)



And René:

Falklands? How so in the Falklands? That war was actual one of the few if not the only one in our lifetime where both sides of the conflict upheld the laws of war and didn't commit attrocities. Why Falklands is in your view an example where "The West was worse"? You have to tell me.